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1122 


WILLIAM 
SHAKESPEARE 


Oxford  University  Press,  Amen  House,  London  £.€.4 

GLASGOW    NEW  YORK    TORONTO    MELBOURNE    WELLINGTON 
BOMBAY    CALCUTTA    MADRAS    KARACHI    LAHORE    DACCA 
CAPE  TOWN    SALISBURY    NAIROBI    IBADAN    ACCRA 
KUALA  LUMPUR    HONG  KONG 


FIRST  EDITION  1930 

REPRINTED  LITHOGRAPHICALLY  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN 

AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS,  OXFORD 

FROM  SHEETS  OF  THE  FIRST  EDITION 

1951,  1963 


§ 
8 


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o 


i 


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WILLIAM 
SHAKESPEARE 

A  STUDY  OF  FACTS  AND  PROBLEMS 

BY 
E.  K.  CHAMBERS 


VOL.  I 


'O  K&apos 
M 

FRAGU.  DEMOCRITI 


OXFORD 
AT  THE  CLARENDON  PRESS 


N.  C. 


PREFACE 

IN  these  pages  I  return,  divers*  per  aequora  vectus>  to 
the  point  from  which  I  started  in  the  last  century.  I 
then  set  out  to  write  of  Shakespeare,  and  of  the  English 
stage  as  a  background  for  Shakespeare;  and  this  has  been 
throughout  my  theme,  although  I  have  not  found  it  pos- 
sible to  use  quite  that  brevity  of  words  which  the  confident 
surmise  of  youth  anticipated.  My  remaining  purpose  is 
threefold.  The  present  volumes  complete  the  design  of 
The  Elizabethan  Stage  by  a  treatment  of  its  central  figure, 
for  which  in  that  book  I  had  no  space  proportionate  to  his 
significance,  .1  collect  the  scanty  biographical  data  from 
records  and  tradition,  and  endeavour  to  submit  them  to 
the  tests  of  a  reasonable  analysis.  And  thirdly,  I  attempt 
to  evaluate  the  results  of  bibliographical  and  historical 
study  in  relation  to  the  canon  of  the  plays,  and  to  form  a 
considered  opinion  upon  the  nature  of  the  texts  in  which 
Shakespeare's  work  is  preserved  to  us.  In  so  doing,  I  am 
led  to  a  confirmation  of  the  doubts  expressed  in  my 
British  Academy  lecture  of  1924  on  The  Disintegration  of 
Shakespeare^  as  to  the  validity  of  certain  drifts  of  specula- 
tion, which  tend  to  minimize  at  once  the  originality  of 
that  work  and  the  purity  of  its  transmission.  I  am  not  so 
much  perturbed  as  some  of  my  critics  seem  to  think  that 
I  ought  to  be,  by  finding  that  my  conclusions  do  not  differ 
essentially  from  those  which  have  long  formed  part  of  the 
critical  tradition.  That  is  itself  the  outcome  of  study 
through  many  generations  by  men  of  diverse  tempers, 
starting  from  diverse  standpoints.  They  have  no  doubt 
left  something  for  modern  scholarship  to  contribute, 
especially  as  regards  the  causes  of  major  textual  variations. 
But  I  do  not  think  that  revolutionary  results  really  emerge 
from  the  closer  examination  of  contemporary  plays,  or 


viii  PREFACE 

of  theatrical  conditions,  or  of  the  psychology  of  misprints. 
Shakespeare,  as  a  dramatist,  remains  something  more  than 
the  life-tenant  of  a  literary  entail, 

I  have  been  on  well-trodden  paths,  and  my  debt  to 
others  is  heavy:  among  the  earlier  writers  to  Malone, 
Halliwell-Phillipps,  and  Dowden  beyond  the  rest;  and 
among  my  own  contemporaries  above  all  to  Dr.  W.  W. 
Greg,  whose  published  studies  I  cite  on  page  after  page, 
and  upon  whose  generosity  in  counsel  and  information  I 
have  constantly  drawn  during  the  progress  of  this  book. 
I  have  learnt  much  also  from  those  accomplished  biblio- 
graphers, Professor  A.  W.  Pollard  and  Dr.  R.  B.  McKer- 
row,  and  from  Professor  J.  Dover  Wilson,  perhaps  most 
where  he  most  stimulated  me  to  reaction.  I  have  had  help 
on  various  points  from  many  others,  to  all  of  whom  my 
thanks  are  due:  Miss  Eleanore  Boswell,  Miss  M.  St. 
Clare  Byrne,  Dr.  H.  H.  E.  Craster,  Mr.  F.  H.  Cripps- 
Day,  Mr,  P.  J.  Dobell,  Mr.  F.  S.  Ferguson,  the  Rev. 
W.  G.  D.  Fletcher,  the  Rev.  E.  I.  Fripp,  Professor  E,  G. 
Gardner,  Mr.  S.  Gibson,  Mr.  M.  S.  Giuseppi,  Father 
W.  Godfrey,  the  Hon.  Henry  Hannen,  Miss  M.  Dormer 
Harris,  the  late  Dr.  J.  W.  Horrocks,  Sir  Mark  Hunter, 
the  Rev.  P.  J,  Latham,  Mr.  E.  T.  Leeds,  Dr.  J.  G. 
Milne,  Professor  G.  C  Moore  Smith,  Professor  D.  Nichol 
Smith,  Professor  Allardyce  Nicoll,  Mr.  A,  M.  Oliver, 
Mr.  S.  C.  Ratcliff,  Mr.  V.  B.  Redstone,  Miss  M.  Sellers, 
Mr.  Percy  Simpson,  Mr.  K.  Sisam,  Professor  C.  J.  Sisson, 
the  late  Professor  E.  A.  Sonnenschein,  Mr.  A.  E,  Stamp, 
the  Rev.  W.  Stanhope-Lovell,  Mr.  A.  H.  Thomas, 
Mr.  F.  C.  Wellstood,  Dr.  C.  T.  Hagberg  Wright. 
To  the  Pierpont  Morgan  Library  of  New  York  I  owe 
permission  to  use  the  Holgate  manuscript  of  Francis 
Beaumont's  poem. 

At  the  end  of  my  pilgrimage  I  have  yet  older  memories 
to  set  down.  The  unfailing  sympathy,  encouragement 


PREFACE  ix 

and  patience  of  my  wife  have  been  my  mainstay  through- 
out. To  her,  Artemis  of  the  Ways,  these  volumes,  like 
their  predecessors,  are  dedicated. 

ov  TroAAi]  8*  TJ  x&pis*  &M'  oofy* 

And  I  should  indeed  be  an  ingrate  if  I  did  not  now  recall 
the  succession  of  those  who  have  done  so  much,  one  after 
another,  for  the  presentation  of  my  work  at  the  Clarendon 
Press.  They  have  among  them  borne  with  my  script  and 
my  divagations  for  well  over  a  quarter  of  a  century;  and 
those  who  survive  must  share  my  feeling  of  relief,  if  not 
its  intermingled  regret,  that  the  last  of  many  chapters  is 
now  closed. 

E.  K.  C. 
EYNSHAM,  July  1930. 


CONTENTS 

VOLUME  I 
I.  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  . 
II.  THE  STAGE  IN  1592 
III.  SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY 
IV*  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY 
V.  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO 
VI.  PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE 
VI L  THE  PROBLEM  or  AUTHENTICITY     . 
VIII,  THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY 
IX.  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO     , 
i,  ii,  iii.  Henry  the  Sixth . 
iv.  Richard  the  Third 
v.  The  Comedy  of  Errors 
vi.  Titus  Andronicus 
vii^The  Taming  of  the  Shrew    . 
viii.  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona 
ix.  Love's  Labour 's  Lost . 
x.  Romeo  and  Juliet 
xi.  Richard  the  Second 
xii.  A  Midsummer-Night's  Dream 
xiii.  King  John 

xiv.  The  Merchant  of  Venice     . 
xv,  xvi.  Henry  the  Fourth 

xvii.  Much  Ado  about  Nothing 
xviii.  Henry  the  Fifth 
xix.  Julius  Caesar     . 
xx.  As  You  Like  It 
XXL  Twelfth  Night  . 
xxii.  Hamlet    .  •      . 
xxiii.  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor 
xxiv.  Troilus  and  Cressida    . 
xxv.  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well    . 
xxvi.  Measure  for  Measure  . 
xxvii.  Othello    . 

xxviii.  King  Lear         .         .         * 
xxix.  Macbeth  .... 


xii  CONTENTS 

xxx.  Antony  and  Cleopatra      ....  476 

xxxi.  Coriolanus 478 

xxxii.  Timon  of  Athens 480 

xxxiii.  Cymbeline    ...;..  484 

xxxiv.  The  Winter's  Tale          ....  487 

xxxv.  The  Tempest 490 

xxxvi.  Henry  the  Eighth 495 

X.  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO      .         .         .  499 

i.  Sir  Thomas  More 499 

ii.  Edward  the  Third 515 

iii.  Pericles 518 

iv.  The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen       .         .         .  528 

v.  Plays  Ascribed  in  the  Third  Folio      .         .  532 

vi.  Other  Ascribed  Plays      ....  537 

XI.  THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS       ....  543 

i.  Venus  and  Adonis          ....  543 

ii.  The  Rape  of  Lucrece     ....  545 

iii.  The  Passionate  Pilgrim  ....  547 

iv.  The  Phoenix  and  Turtle          .         .         .  549 

v.  A  Lover's  Complaint     ....  550 

vi.  Ascribed  Verses 550 

vii.  The  Sonnets 555 

VOLUME  II 

NOTE  ON  RECORDS xiii 

PRINCIPAL  DATES xiv 

PEDIGREE  OF  SHAKESPEARE  AND  ARDEN  xvi 
APPENDICES — 

A.  RECORDS i 

i.  Christenings,  Marriages,  and  Burials        .         .  i 

ii.  The  Grants  of  Arms 1 8 

iii.  Henley  Street 32 

igrThe  AdblJ^hgjapt^u *_  ...t* ^ *^-~<~**~  **3f 

v.  Shakespeare's  Marriage         .         .         7"       .  41 

vi.  The  Clayton  Suit 52 

vii.  Shakespeare's  Interests  in  the  Globe  and  Black- 
friars    .......  52 

viii.  Shakespeare  and  his  Fellows .         .         .         .  71 

ix.  Shakespeare's  London  Residences             .         .  87 

x.  The  Belott-Mountjoy  Suit   ....  90 

xi.  New  Place        ......  95 


CONTENTS  ziH 

xii.  Shakespeare  as  Maltster        ....        99 

xiii.  The  Quiney  Correspondence         .         .         .       101 

xiv.  The  Old  Stratford  Freehold          ...       107 

xv.  The  Chapel  Lane  Cottage    .         .         .  in 

xvi.  Court  of  Record  Suits          .         .         .         .113 

xvii.  The  Stratford  Tithes 118 

xviit.  The  Combe  Family 127 

xix.  The  Welcombe  Enclosure    ....       141 

xx.  The  Highways  Bill 152 

xxi.  A  Preacher's  Thirst 153 

xxii.  Lord  Rutland's  Impresa       .         .         .         .153 
xxiiL  The  Blackfriars  Gate-House         .         .         .154 

xxiv.  Shakespeare's  Will 169 

xxv.  Shakespeare's  Epitaphs         .         .         .         .181 

B.  CONTEMPORARY  ALLUSIONS 186 

G.  THE  SHAKESPEARE-MYTHOS        ....  238 

D.  PERFORMANCES  OF  PLAYS 303 

E.  THE  NAME  SHAKESPEARE 354 

F.  SHAKESPEAREAN  FABRICATIONS     ....  377 

G.  TABLE  OF  QUARTOS 394 

H.  METRICAL  TABLES 397 

LIST  OF  BOOKS 409 

SUBJECT-INDEX      .......      426 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 
VOLUME  I 

I.  South  Warwickshire  and  Neighbourhood,  from 
the  tapestry  map  (Bodleian,  Gough  collection) 
made  by  the  Sheldon  weavers  of  Weston,  late  in 
the  1 6th  century  .  .  .  Frontispiece 

II.  Neighbourhood  of  Stratford-on- A  von        .      facing  p.  4 

III.  Town  of  Stratford-on- A  von   .  6 

IV.  Ferdinando,  Earl  of  Derby,  by  permission  from 

the  portrait  in  the  possession  of  the  Earl  of 
Derby,  K.G.,  at  Knowsley  Hall ...         46 

V.  Edward   Alleyn,  from  the  picture  at  Dulwich 

College,  by  permission  of  the  Governors          .         48 

VI.  The  Lords  Chamberlain  64 

(a)  Henry,  Lord  Hunsdon,  from  a  print  in  the 
British  Museum. 

(b)  George,  Lord  Hunsdon,  by  permission  from 
a  miniature  in  the  possession  of  the  Duke  of 
Buccleuch  and  reproduced  from  a  print  supplied 
by  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum. 

VII.  Richard  Burbadge,  from  the  picture  in  the 
Gallery  of  Dulwich  College,  by  permission  of 
the  Governors 76 

VIII.  William  Sly,  from  the  picture  in  the  Gallery  of 
Dulwich  College,  by  permission  of  the 
Governors 78 

IX.  John  Lowin,  from  the  picture  in  the  Ashmolean        80 

.  X.  Nathan  Field,  from  the  picture  in  the  Gallery 
of  Dulwich  College,  by  permission  of  the 
Governors 82 

XL  Henry  Peacham's  Illustration  of  Titus  Andromcus^ 
by  permission,  from  the  Harley  Papers  in  the 
possession  of  the  Marquis  of  Bath  at  Longleat  312 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 
XII  A.  Shakespeare's  Signatures,  to— 

(a)  The   Deposition  in   Eelott  v.  Mountjoy^ 
from  the  Public  Record  Office.  Photograph, 
by  Messrs.  Monger  &  Marchant. 

(b)  The  Conveyance  of  the  Blackfriars  Gate- 
house, from  the  Guildhall  Library  of  the  City 
of  London. 

(c)  The  Mortgageof  the  Blackfriars  Gate-house, 

from  the  British  Museum        .          .  facing  p.  504 

XII  B.  Shakespeare's  Signatures,  to— 

W>  W>  (/)  The  WM  (first,  second,  and  third 
pages),  from  the  Probate  Registry  of  the  Pre- 
rogative Court  of  Canterbury  at  Somerset 
House 504 

XIII.  Hand  D  in  Sir  Thomas  More^  from  British 

Museum  Harleian  MS.  7368,  fol.  9  a         .       508 

XIV.  William  Earl  of  Pembroke,  from  the  brass 

statue  by  Hubert  le  Soeur  in  the  Bodleian, 

based  on  a  picture  by  Rubens  .          .          .       566 

XV.  Henry  Earl  of  Southampton,  from  the  picture  in 

the  National  Portrait  Gallery  .          .         .       568 

VOLUME  II 

XVI.  John  Davenant's  Painted  Chamber,  at  3  Corn- 
market,  Oxford,  by  permission  of  Mr.  E.  W. 
Attwood  .....  Frontispiece 

XVII.  Richard  Quiney's  Letter  to  Shakespeare,  from 
the  Birthplace  Museum  at  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  by  permission  of  die  Trustees .  facing  102 

XVIII.  Memoranda  of  Thomas  Greene,  from  the 
Birthplace  Museum  at  Stratford-on-Avon, 
by  permission  of  the  Trustees  .  ,  .  143 

XIX.  Shakespeare's  Will  (First  Sheet),  from  the  Pro- 
bate Registry  of  the  Prerogative  Court  of 
Canterbury.  .  .  .  .  .170 

XX.  Shakespeare's  WiU  (Second  SheetJ,  as  above     .        172 

XXI.  Shakespeare's  Will  (Third    Sheet;,  as  above. 

Photographs,  R.  B.  Fleming  &  Co.  .          .       174 

3 142- 1 


XVI 


XXIII. 
XXIV. 


between 
pages  196-7 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

XXII.  Shakespeare's   Monument,  from   Holy 
Trinity  Church,  Stratford-on-Avon. 
Photograph,  Frith  &  Co.        .         .       facing  182. 
Shakespeare's  Bust,  from  the  monument. 

Photograph,  Frith  &  Co.        .  184 

Cover  of  the  Northumberland  MS. 
(Reduced  Facsimile),  from  intensified 
negative,  with  the  background,  and 
incidentally  the  last  two  letters  of  Dyr- 
month's  name,  eliminated 

XXV.  Cover  of  the  Northumberland  MS. 
(Transcript).  The  facsimile  and  the 
transcript  from  F.  J.  Burgoyne,  Collo- 
type Facsimile  and  Type  Transcript  of 
an  Elizabethan  MS.  at  Alwwlck  Castle 
(Longmans,  Green  &  Co.,  Ltd.),  by 
permission  of  His  Grace  the  late 
Duke  of  Northumberland,  K.G. 

XXVI.  Droeshout  Engraving  (First  State),' 
from  the  title-page  of  the  First  Folio 
(Bodleian  Arch.  G.  c.  8)  I  between 

XXVII.  Droeshout  Engraving  (Second  State),  \  pages  240-1 
from  the  title-page  of  the  First  Folio 
(Bodleian  Arch.  G.  c.  7) 

XXVIII.  Memorandum  of  John  Aubrey,  from 

Bodleian  Aubrey  MS.  8,  f.  45V        ,       facing  252 
XXIX.  Memoranda  of  William  Fulman  and 
Richard  Davies,  from  C.C.C.  (Oxford) 
MS.  309,  p.  22  .         .         .  257 

XXX.  Warwickshire  in  1610,  from  map  by 
Jodocus  Hondius  in  John  Speed,  Theatre 
of  the  Empire  of  Great  Britain  (i  6 1 1)  .  354 


CHAPTER  I 
SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN 

\Bibliographical  Note.  Most  of  the  comprehensive  treatises  upon  Shake- 
speare and  the  editions  of  the  plays  (ch.  ix)  deal  with  his  personal  biography 
side  by  side  with  his  career  as  a  dramatist.  The  Lives  by  S.  Lee  (1898, 
1925)  and  J.  Q.  Adams  (1923)  are  full  in  this  respect.  Many  documents 
collected  by  Malone  and  his  predecessors  are  to  be  found  in  the  revised 
Life  of  the  Variorum  Shakespeare  (1821),  ii,  and  its  appendixes.  Some 
additions  were  made  by  Collier  and  others,  but  more  by  Halliwell-Phillipps 
in  his  Liv.es  of  1848  and  1853,  which  are  still  of  value,  and  in  a  number 
of  smaller  works,  often  issued  in  limited  editions  and  now  rare.  Most,  but 
not  all,  of  these  were  brought  together  in  his  Outlines  of  the  Life  of  Shake- 
speare which  was  often  enlarged  and  took  its  final  form  in  the  seventh 
edition  of  1887.  Since  his  time  the  chief  new  discoveries  have  been  those 
of  C.  W.  Wallace,  mostly  published  in  Nebraska  University  Studies,  v,  x 
(1905,  1910).  Selections  of  documents  are  in  D.  H.  Lambert,  Cartae 
Shakespeareanae  (1904),  and  T.  Brooke,  Shakespeare  of  Stratford  (1926). 
The  papers  at  Stratford  are  calendared  in  F.  C.  Wellstood,  Catalogue  of 
the  Books,  Manuscripts,  etc.  in  Shakespeare's  Birthplace  (1925).  I  give 
the  most  important  documents  and  extracts  from  others,  as  far  as  possible 
from  originals  or  facsimiles,  with  references  to  some  minor  dissertations,  in 
Appendix  A.  These  are  supplemented  by  the  contemporary  allusions  in 
Appendix  B  and  the  traditions  in  Appendix  C. 

Books  of  primarily  biographical  interest  are  J,  Hunter,  New  Illustrations 
ofSh.  (1845);  G.  R.  French,  Shakespeareana  Genealogica  (1869);  J.  P. 
Yeatman,  The  Gentle  Sh.  (1896;  1904,  with  additions);  C.  C.  Stopes, 
SJt's  Family  (1901),  Sh.'s  Warwickshire  Contemporaries  (1907),  Sh.'s 
Environment  (1914,  1918),  SA.'s  Industry  (1916);  C.  I.  Elton,  William 
Sh.  His  Family  and  Friends  (1904);  J.  W.  Gray,  SA.'s  Marriage  and 
Departure  from  Stratford  (1905);  A.  Gray,  A  Chapter  in  the  Early  Life 
ofSh.  (1926);  J.  S.  Smart,  Sh.  Truth  and  Tradition  (1928). 

There  is  no  adequate  history  of  Stratford-on-Avon.  Dugdale's  Anti- 
quities of  Warwickshire  (1656;  ed.  W.  Thomas,  1718)  is  valuable  on  the 
origins.  The  Victoria  History  covers  the  college,  gild,  and  school,  but  has 
not  yet  reached  the  parochial  volumes.  The  Corporation  archives  are 
voluminous.  H.P.  provided  a  Descriptive  Calendar  (1863)  and  printed 
Extracts  from  the  Council  Books  (1864),  Extracts  from  the  Subsidy  Rolls 
(1864),  Extracts  from  the  Festry  Book  (1865),  The  Chamberlain?  Accounts, 
i59°-97  (1866),  Extracts  from  the  Chamberlain?  Accounts  (1866-7), 
Extracts  from  the  Registry  of  the  Court  of  Record  (1867).  These  are  being 
largely  replaced  by  R.  Savage  and  E.  I.  Fripp,  Minutes  and  Accounts  of  the 
Corporation  and  other  Records  (1921-9,  Dugdale  Society,  4  vols.  to  1592 
issued).  R.  Savage  has  printed  tie  Parish  Registers  (1897-1905,  Parish 
Register  Soc.)  and  G.  Arbuthnot  the  Festry  Minute  Book  (1899),  J.  H. 

3I42-I  B 


2  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  Chap.  I 

Bloom's  Shakespeare's  Church  (1902)  is  unsatisfactory.  He  has  also  edited 
the  Register  of  the  Gild  of  Holy  Cross  (1907).  Other  special  studies  are 
R.  B.  Wheler,  Historical  Account  of  the  Birthplace  (1824,  1863);  G. 
Arbuthnot,  Guide  to  the  Collegiate  Church  (c.  1895);  H.  E.  Forrest,  The 
Old  Houses  of  S.  A.  (1925).  Early  summary  accounts  are  R.  B.  Wheler, 
History  and  Antiquities  of  S.  A.  (1806),  and  J.  R.  Wise,  Sh.'s  Birthplace 
and  its  Neighbourhood  (1861);  more  recent  S.  Lee,  S.  A.  from  the  Earliest 
Times  to  the  Death  of  Sh.  (1885,  1907),  and  E.  I.  Fripp,  Sh.'s  Stratford 
(1928).  The  surrounding  neighbourhood  is  described  in  E.  I.  Fripp, 
Sh.'s  Haunts  near  Stratford  (1929);  earlier  guide-books  are  C.  J,  Ribton- 
Turner,  Sh.'s  Land(i%<)$)\  B.  C.  A.  Windle,  8k.9 s  Country  (1899);  W.  S. 
Brassington,  Sh.'s  Homeland  (1903). 

Practically  all  the  available  information  about  John  Sh.  is  collected  in 
H.P.'s  Outlines.  Traditions  of  the  poet's  Stratford  life  are  discussed  in 
C.  F.  Green,  The  Legend  of  Sh.'s  Crab-Tree  (1857,  1862);  C.  H.  Brace- 
bridge,  8A.  no  Deer-Stealer  (1862);  his  grammar  school  in  a  Tercentenary 
Volume  (1853);  by  A.  F.  Leach  in  7.H.  ii.  329,  English  Schools  at  the 
Reformation  (1896),  Educational  Charters  and  Documents  (1911);  and  by 
A.  R.  Bayley,  Sh.'s  Schoolmasters  (10  N.Q.  viii.  323;  12  N.Q.  i.  321); 
J.  H.  Pollen,  A  Sh.  Discovery:  His  School-master  afterwards  a  Jesuit  (1917, 
The  Month,  cxxx.  317);  W.  H.  Stgrenson,  8k! s  Schoolmaster  and  Hand- 
writing (1920,  Jan.  8,  T.L.S.)->  and'rts  curriculum  by  T.  S.  Baynes,  What 
Sh.  Learnt  at  School  (1894, 8k.  Studies,  147);  F.  Watson,  The  Curriculum 
and  Text-Books  of  English  Schools  in  the  Seventeenth  Century  (1902,  Bibl. 
Soc.  Trans,  vi.  159);  S.  Blach,  Sks  Lattingrammatik  (1908-9,  J.  xliv.  65; 
xlv.  51);  J.  E.  Sandys,  Education  (Sh.'s  England,  i.  224).  More  general 
works  on  Sh.'s  literary  acquirements  are  H.  R.  D.  Anders,  Sk!s  Books 
(1904);  H.  B.  Wheatley,  Sh.  as  a  Man  of  Letters  (1919,  Bill.  Soc.  Trans. 
xiv.  109);  R.  Farmer,  Essay  on  the  Learning  of  Sh.  (1767;  Far.  i.  300); 
A.  H.  Cruickshank,  The  Classical  Attainments  ofSh.  (1887,  Noctes  Shake- 
spearianae9  45);  P.  Stapfer,  8k.  and  Classical  Antiquity  (1880);  J.  C. 
Collins,  Essays  and  Studies  (i  895) ;  R.  K.  Root,  Classical  Mythology  in  Sh. 
(1903);  M.  W.  McCallum,  Sh.'s  Roman  Plays  and  their  Background 
(1910);  L.  Rick,  Sh.  and  Ovid  (1919,  J.  lv.  35);  E.  R.  Hooker,  The 
Relation  ofSA.  to  Montaigne  (1902,  P.M.L.A.  xvii.  3 1 2) ;  J.  M.  Robertson, 
Montaigne  and  Sh.  (1909);  G.  C.Taylor,  Sh.'s  Debt  to  Monta  igne(i<)2  5); 
C.  Wordsworth,  Sh.'s  Knowledge  and  Use  of  the  Bible  (4th  ed.,  1892); 
T.  Carter,  8k.  and  Holy  Scripture  (1905);  J.  A.  R.  Marriott,  English 
History  in  Sk.  (1918);  H.  Green,  Sh.  and  the  Emblem- Writers  (1870);  R. 
Jente,  Proverbs  ofSh.  (1926  Washington  Univ.  Studies  xiii.  391).  On  the 
specificsources  of  the  plays  are:  J.  Nichols,  Six  Old  Plays  (1779) ;  K.  Simrock 
and  others,  Quellen  des  Sh.  (1831);  J.  P.  Collier,  Sh.'s  Library  (1844;  «<*. 
W.  C.  Hazlitt,  1875);  I.  Gollancz  and  others,  8k.  Classics  (1903-13); 
F,  A.  Leo,  Four  Chapters  of  North's  Plutarch  (1878);  A.  Vollmer,  8k.  and 
Plutarch  (1887,  Archiv,  Ixxvii.  353;  Ixxviii.  75,  215);  W.  W.  Skeat, 
Sh.'s  Plutarch  (1892);  R.  H.  Carr,  Plutarch's  Lives  (1906);  W.  G. 
BosweU-Stone,  8k.'s  Holinshed  (1896);  A.  and  J,  Nicoll,  Holinshed's 


Chap.  I  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  3 

Chronicles  as  Used  in  Si.'s  Plays  (1927).  On  Shakespeare's  knowledge  of 
country  life  are  H.  Loewe,  Si.  unddie  Waidmannskunst  (1904,  J.  xl.  51); 
D.  H.  Madden,  The  Diary  of  Master  William  Silence  (1897);  C.  Brown, 
Sh.  and  the  Horse  (1912,  j  Library,  iii.  1 52);  H.  N.  Ellacombe,  Si.  as  an 
Angler (1883),  Plant-Lore  and  Garden-Craft  of  Sh.  (3rded.  1896);?.  G. 
Savage,  Flora  and  folk-Lore  of  Sh.  (1923);  A.  Geikie,  The  Birds  of  Sh. 
(1916).  On  his  medical  knowledge  are  J.  C.  Bucknill,  Medical  Knowledge 
of  Si.  (1860),  Mad  Folk  of  Sh.  (1867);  J.  Moyes,  Medicine  and  Kindred 
Arts  in  the  Plays  of  Sh.  (1896).  On  his  legal  knowledge  and  conjectured 
training  as  a  lawyer  are  J.  Lord  Campbell,  Si.9s  Legal  Acquirements  (1859); 
W.  L.  Rushton,  Si.  a  Lawyer  (1858),  Si's  Legal  Maxims  (1859,  1907), 
Si.'*  Testamentary  Language  (1869),  Si.  Illustrated  by  the  Lex  Scrip  fa 
(1870);  J.  Kohler,  Si.  vor  dem  Forum  der  Jurisprudenz  (1883,  1919); 
W.  C.  Devecmon,  In  re  Si.'s  Legal  Acquirements  (1899);  C.  Allen,  Notes 
on  the  Sh.-Bacon  Question  (1900) ;  G.  G.  Greenwood,  Si.9s  Law  and  Latin 
(1916),  Si.'s  Law  (1920);  A.  Underhill,  £^(1917, 1926,  Si.'s  England, 
i.  381);  D.  P.  Barton,  Si.'s  Links  with  the  Law  (1929).  On  other  occupa- 
tions ascribed  to  Shakespeare  are  W.  J.  Thorns,  Was  Si.  ever  a  Soldier? 
(1865,  Three  Notelets  on  Si.)i  W.  Blades,  Si.  and  Typography  (1872); 
W.  L.  Rushton,  Si.  an  Archer  (1897).] 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE  was  born  of  burgess  folk,  not  un- 
like those  whom  he  depicts  in  The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor. 
Stratford-on-Avon,  however,  had  not  grown  up  in  the 
shadow  of  a  royal  castle.  It  was  a  provincial  market 
town,  and  counted  with  Henley-in-Arden  after  the  city  of 
Coventry  and  the  borough  of  Warwick  among  the  business 
centres  of  Warwickshire.  It  stood  on  the  north  bank  of 
the  Avon,  where  a  ford  had  once  been  traversed  -by  a 
minor  Roman  thoroughfare.  A  medieval  wooden  bridge 
had  been  replaced  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  by 
the  stone  one  which  still  survives.  The  great  western 
highway,  following  the  line  of  Watling  Street  to  Shrews- 
bury and  Chester,  passed  well  to  the  north  through 
Coventry.  But  at  Stratford  bridge  met  two  lesser  roads 
from  London,  one  by  Oxford  and  under  the  Cotswolds, 
the  other  by  Banbury  and  Edgehill;  and  beyond  it  ways 
radiated  through  Stratford  itself  to  Warwick,  Birming- 
ham, Alcester,  and  Evesham.  'Emporiolum  non  in- 
elegans'  is  the  description  of  the  place  in  Camden's 
Britannia ,  and  Leland,  who  visited  it  about  1540,  records 
that  it  was  'reasonably  well  buyldyd  of  tymbar',  with 

B  2 


4  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  Chap.  I 

'two  or  three  very  lardge  stretes,  besyde  bake  lanes'.  Topo- 
graphers give  the  name  of  Arden  to  Warwickshire  north 
of  the  Avon  and  distinguish  it  as  the  Woodland  from  the 
cultivated  champaign  of  the  Feldon  to  the  south.  But  even 
on  the  north  bank  of  the  river  there  were  open  corn- 
fields, as  well  as  many  enclosed  pastures,  and  frequent 
hamlets  tell  of  early  clearings  on  the  fringe  of  Arden.  The 
lord  had  his  boscus  at  Stratford  in  the  thirteenth  century 
and  later  a  park,  but  Leland  says  that  little  woodland  was 
visible  there  in  his  time. 

The  town  of  Stratford  only  occupied  a  small  part  of 
a  large  parish  which  bore  the  same  name.  This  ^ was  ten 
miles  in  circuit  and  had  i,5oohouseling  people  in  1546. 
Mercian  kings  had  made  wide  grants  to  the  bishops  of 
Worcester,  with  a  'hundredal'  jurisdiction  independent  of 
the  sheriff  over  the  liberty  of  Pathlow,  for  which  they  held 
wayside  courts  at  Pathlow  itself  and  at  Gilleputs  in  Strat- 
ford.  There  was  a  monastery,  afterwards  discontinued, 
for  the  bishop  and  his  household.  Much  of  the  dominion, 
even  in  Saxon  times,  had  passed  from  the  bishops  by 
devolution  to  thanes  and  in  other  ways,  and  in  the  six- 
teenth-century parish  there  were  several  manors.    The 
hamlet  of  Clopton  was  held  by  the  family  of  that  name; 
Luddington  by  the  Convays  of  Arrow;  Drayton  by  the 
Petos  of  Chesterton;   Bishopston  by  the  Catesbys  of 
Lapworth  and  afterwards  by  the  Archers  of  Tan  worth; 
part  of  Shottery  by  the  Smiths  of  Wootton  Wawen.  But 
the  principal  manor  still  remained  with  the  bishop  up  to 
1549.    In  this  lay  the  borough  itself,  the  'Old  Town* 
which  divided  it  from  the  parish  church  of  Holy  Trinity 
on  the  southern  outskirts,  and  a  considerable  stretch  of 
agricultural  land  in  the  fields  of  Old  Stratford,  Welcombe, 
and  Shottery.1  The  bishop  had  also  the  distinct  township 
of  Bishop's  Hampton,  to  the  east  of  Stratford.   On  the 
south  side  of  the  river  were  the  Lucy  manor  of  Charlecote, 
the  Greville  manor  of  Milcote,  and  the  Rainsford  manor 
of  Clifford  Chambers  in  Gloucestershire.  The  hamlet  of 
Bridgetown  beyond  the  bridge  was  partly  in  the  borough 

1  Cf.  plan  (Plate  III). 


PLATE    II 


Office 


Chap.  I  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  5 

and  partly  in  Alveston.  To  the  north-east  and  north-west 
of  Stratford  were  the  villages  of  Snitterfield  and  Aston 
Cantlow.  They  had  been  'Warwickslands',  lordships  of 
the  dominant  families  of  Beauchamp  and  Neville,  and  had 
reverted  to  the  crown  on  attainder.  For  all  these  places 
Stratford  was  the  natural  urban  centre,1 

The  borough  had  come  into  existence  under  Bishop 
John  de  Coutances  (i  195-8),  who  had  laid  out  part  of  his 
demesne  in  quarter-acre  plots  of  uniform  frontage  and 
depth.  These  were  held  as  burgages,  practically  on  a  free- 
hold tenure,  subject  to  shilling  chief  rents,  and  with  rights 
of  division  and  disposition  by  sale  or  will.  A  separate 
manor  court  was  presided  over  by  the  bishop's  steward, 
but  the  burgesses  probably  chose  their  own  bailiff  and 
sub-bailiffs  as  executive  officers.  The  court  sat  twice  in 
the  year,  for  'leets'  or  'law  days'  near  Easter  and  Michael- 
mas. At  these  officers  were  appointed,  transfers  of 
burgages  were  recorded,  small  civil  actions  for  debt 
and  the  like  were  heard,  by-laws  for  good  order  were 
made,  and  breaches  of  these,  with  frays  and  infringements 
of  the  'assizes'  of  food  and  drink  and  other  standards 
for  the  quality  of  saleable  articles,  were  punished.  Side 
by  side  with  the  manorial  jurisdiction  had  grown  up 
the  organization  of  the  Gild  of  Holy  Cross,  which 
ministered  in  many  ways  to  the  well-being  of  the  town. 
It  dated  from  the  thirteenth  century.  Early  in  the  fifteenth 
it  absorbed  smaller  gilds,  and  thereafter  an  almost  con- 
tinuous register  preserves  the  admissions  of  brothers  and 
sisters,  and  the  payments  for  the  souls  of  the  dead,  whose 
masses  were  sung  by  the  priests  of  its  chapel.  The 
members  of  the  gild  were  bound  to  fraternal  relations  and 
to  attendance  at  each  others  funerals  in  their  Augustinian 
hoods.  Periodical  love-feasts  encouraged  more  mundane 
intercourse.  The  gild  had  accumulated  much  property,  in 
and  about  Stratford,  from  pious  gifts  and  legacies.  It 
helped  its  poorer  members  and  maintained  an  almshouse. 
A  school,  which  had  existed  in  some  form  as  far  back  as 
1295,  was  one  of  its  activities.  This  had  an  endowment 

Cf.  map  (Plate  II). 


6  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  Chap.  I 

from  Thomas  Joliffe  for  the  gratuitous  teaching  of  gram- 
mar by  one  of  the  priests.  The  gild  buildings,  which  stood 
just  within  the  borough,  owed  their  latest  form  to  Sir 
Hugh  Clopton,  Lord  Mayor  of  London  in  1492.  He,  too, 
had  built  the  bridge.  The  affairs  of  the  gild  were  in  the 
hands  of  a  Master  and  Aldermen,  with  two  Proctors  as 
financial  officers.  It  was  at  the  height  of  its  reputation  in 
the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  attracted  members 
of  distinction  from  far  beyond  the  limits  of  Stratford. 
Later  it  suffered  a  decline,  perhaps  due  in  part  to  the  rise 
of  trade  gilds,  in  which  the  craftsmen  of  the  town  were 
linked  for  business  purposes.  Probably  the  gild  chapel 
counted  for  more  in  the  religious  life  of  the  borough  than 
the  comparatively  distant  church.  This  belonged  to  a 
college  of  priests  under  a  warden,  which  also  had  acquired 
much  landed  property,  in  addition  to  the  ample  tithes  of 
the  large  parish.  Two  chapels  in  the  hamlets  of  Bishopston 
and  Luddington  were  under  its  control. 

The  reign  of  Edward  VI  was  a  period  of  considerable 
change  for  Stratford.  The  gild  and  the  college  were  both 
dissolved  under  the  Chantries  Act  of  1547,  and  their 
revenues  went  to  the  crown.  Provisional  direction  was 
given  for  the  continuance  of  the  school.  In  1 549  Bishop 
Nicholas  Heath  was  driven,  apparently  for  inadequate 
compensation,  to  transfer  his  manor,  with  that  of  Bishop's 
Hampton,  to  John  Dudley,  Earl  of  Warwick  and  after- 
wards Duke  of  Northumberland,  who  aspired  to  restore 
the  old  domination  of  the  Beauchamps  and  Nevilles  in  the 
county.  It  passed  from  him  in  the  same  year  and  back  to 
him  in  1553  by  exchanges  with  the  crown.  On  his  at- 
tainder in  1553  Mary  granted  it  to  the  duchess,  and  after 
her  death  in  1555  to  the  hospital  of  the  Savoy.  But  this 
grant  was  almost  immediately  vacated,  and  the  manor 
remained  with  the  crown  until  1 562,  when  Elizabeth  gave 
it  to  Northumberland's  son  Ambrose  Dudley,  now  in  his 
turn  created  Earl  of  Warwick.  On  his  death  in  1590  it 
again  reverted  to  the  crown,  but  was  sold  and  acquired  by 
Sir  Edward  Greville  of  Milcote.1  Another  event  of  1 553 

1  Cf.  App.  Ay  no.  xix. 


Scok  qf  yonts 

0  ]00          200  300  400 


%  doited  line  is  the 
borouqh  boundoru 

o      u 


Oxford  University  Press 


TOWN  OF  STRATFORD-ON-AVON 


Chap.  I  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  7 

had,  however,  reduced  the  importance  of  the  manor  and 
its  court  in  local  affairs.   The  inhabitants,  perturbed  by 
the^loss  of  valuable  elements  in  their  civic  life,  petitioned 
for  incorporation  as  a  royal  borough;  and  this,  presumably 
through  the  influence  of  Northumberland,  then  in  power, 
was  accorded  by  a  charter  of  28  June  1 553.  The  govern- 
ment of  the  borough  was  entrusted  to  a  Bailiff  and 
a  Council  of  fourteen  Aldermen  and  fourteen  Capital 
Burgesses,  with  powers  to  provide  for  good  order  and  the 
management  of  corporate  property,  to  fill  vacancies  in 
their  number,  and  to  make  annual  election  of  the  bailiff, 
Serjeants  at  the  mace,  constables,  and  such  other  officers 
as  might  prove  .necessary.   The  Council  was  to  have  the 
return  to  royal  writs  within  the  borough,  to  the  exclusion  of 
the  sheriff,  and  the  bailiff  to  hold  crown  office  as  escheator, 
coroner,  almoner,  and  clerk  of  the  market.  With  a  chosen 
alderman,  he  was  to  act  as  justice  of  peace.  Authority  was 
given  for  a  weekly  market  and  for  two  annual  fairs,  with 
a  court  of  pie-powder.    There  was  also  to  be  a  court  of 
record  under  the  bailiff,  with  jurisdiction  in  civil  causes, 
where  the  amount  in  dispute  was  not  more  than  £30.  To 
meet  the  municipal  expenses,  the   charter  granted  the 
property  of  the  late  gild,  worth  about  ^46,  and  the  rever- 
sion of  a  lease  of  the  parish  tithes  granted  by  the  college, 
with  the  reserved  rent  of  £$+.1    The  rest  of  the  college 
property  remained  with  the  Crown.    The  funds  granted 
were  charged  with  the  maintenance  of  the  almshouse, 
and  with  salaries  for  the  schoolmaster,  the  vicar,  and  his 
curate.   A  general  reservation,  which  afterwards  led  to 
trouble,  was  made  for  the  rights  of  the  lord  of  the  manor, 
and  in  particular  the  election  of  the  bailiff  was  to  be  sub- 
ject to  his  approval,  and  he  was  to  have  the  appointment 
of  the  schoolmaster  and  vicar.  For  some  years  from  1 553 
the  records  leave  it  rather  difficult  to  disentangle  the 
activities  of  the  bailiff  and  his  brethren  from  those  of 
the  court  leet.  But  soon  after  a  recognition  of  the  charter 
by  Elizabeth  in  1560,  the  Council  was  regularly  at  work, 
holding  its  meetings  at  'halls'  every  month  or  so  in  the 

1  Cf.  App.  A,  no.  xvii. 


8  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  Chap.  I 

buildings  of  the  old  gild,  making  its  by-laws,  surveying  its 
property,  approving  leases,  ordering  the  market,  the  fairs, 
and  the  almshouse,  and  raising  small  levies  for  public  or 
charitable  purposes  to  supplement  its  regular  funds. 

It  had  at  first  a  town  clerk  and  afterwards  a  steward,  who 
assisted  the  bailiff  at  the  court  of  record.1  This,  in  addi- 
tion to  its  jurisdiction  between  civil  litigants,  chiefly  in 
cases  of  debt,  took  over  the  imposition  of  penalties  for 
breaches  of  by-laws  or  of  the  assize.  Frays  may  be  assumed 
to  have  fallen  to  the  justices  of  peace.  The  leet,  although 
shorn  of  many  of  its  functions,  continued  to  be  held.  It 
presumably  dealt  with  matters  peculiar  to  the  manor,  such 
as  the  transfer  of  burgages.  The  constables,  although 
chosen  by  the  Council  with  other  officers  at  Michaelmas, 
were  sworn  in  at  a  leet.  Disputes  arose  with  the  lords  of 
the  manor,  about  toll-corn,  about  commoners'  rights, 
about  the  approval  of  bailiffs.  Internal  discipline  also 
gave  trouble.  The  aldermen  and  principal  burgesses  did 
not  always  attend  halls  regularly,  and  some  of  them  were 
inclined  to  shun  the  responsibilities  of  office  when  their 
turns  came.  Towards  the  end  of  the  century  the  Council 
was  much  occupied  with  affairs  in  London.2  The  in- 
dustries of  Stratford  were  decaying  and  there  had  been 
disastrous  fires.  Suits  were  made  to  the  Crown  for  ex- 
emption from  subsidies,  and  for  an  enlarged  charter.  One 
was  in  fact  granted  by  James  in  1 6 10,  which  extended  the 
boundary  of  the  borough  to  include  the  Old  Town.  The 
minutes  of  council  meetings  are  not  very  full.  Rather 
more  illuminating  are  the  accounts  of  the  Chamberlains, 
who  had  succeeded  the  proctors  of  the  gild  as  financial 
officers.  These  were  made  up  annually  after  each  year  of 
office  and  presented  to  the  Council  for  audit  about 
Christmas.  The  chamberlains  collected  the  rents  and 
dues,  and  kept  a  detailed  record  of  their  expenditure  upon 
salaries,  repairs  to  property,  gifts,  generally  in  wine  and 
sugar,  to  distinguished  strangers,  and  rewards  to  players. 
The  accounts  throw  many  sidelights  on  town  history  and 
on  local  personalities.  Religious  changes  for  example  are 

x  Cf.  App.  A,  no.  xvL  »  Cf.  App.  A,  nos.  xii,  xiii. 


Chap.  I  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  9 

traceable  in  payments  of  1562-3  for  defacing  images  in 
the  chapel,  and  of  1563-4  for  taking  down  the  rood-loft, 
and  in  a  council  order  of  1571  for  the  sale  of  copes  and 
vestments.1 

Stratford  has  been  represented  as  a  dirty  and  ignorant 
town,  an  unmeet  cradle  for  poetry.  There  is  some  want 
of  historical  perspective  here.  No  doubt  sanitary  science 
was  in  its  infancy.  But,  after  all,  penalties  for  the  breach  of 
by-laws,  if  they  are  evidence  that  the  by-laws  were  some- 
times broken,  are  also  evidence  that  they  were  enforced. 
Nor  was  contemporary  London,  with  the  puppy  dogs  in 
its  Fleet  and  its  unsecured  Moorditch,  in  much  better 
case.  Stratford  had  its  paved  streets  and  much  garden 
ground  about  its  houses.  It  was  embosomed  in  elms,  of 
which  a  survey  of  1582  records  a  vast  number  in  .closes 
and  on  the  backsides  of  the  burgages.2  And  all  around  was 
fair  and  open  land  with  parks  and  dingles  and  a  shining 
river.  There  was  much  give  and  take  between  town  and 
country-side.  The  urban  industries,  weaving,  dyeing, 
tanning,  shoe-making,  glove-making,  smithing,  rope- 
making,  carpentry,  were  such  as  subserve  or  are  fed  by 
agriculture.  Many  of  the  burgesses  were  also  landholders 
in  the  parish  or  in  neighbouring  villages.  There  was  much 
buying  of  barley,  for  the  making  and  sale  of  malt,  which 
was  a  subsidiary  occupation  of  many  households.3  Sheep, 
cattle,  ducks,  and  ringed  swine  ran  on  the  common  pasture 
called  the  Bank  Croft.  Although  remote,  the  town  was 
not  out  of  touch  with  a  larger  civilization.  Access  to  Oxford 
was  easy,  and  to  London  itself,  by  roads  on  which  carriers 
came  and  went  regularly,  and  the  burgesses  journeyed  on 
their  public  and  private  business.  Nor  was  it  entirely 
bookless.  Leading  townsmen  could  quote  Latin  and  write 
a  Latin  letter  if  need  be.  Critical  eyes  may  have  watched 
the  Whitsun  pastoral  which  David  Jones  produced  in 
1 5  8  3 .4  The  Grammar  School  was  probably  of  good  stand- 
ing. The  schoolmaster's  salary,  which  Joliffe  fixed  at  £  I  o, 

1  M.A.  i.  128, 1385  ii.  54.  4  M.A.  w.  137 :  Tayd  to  Davi  Jones 

*  M.A.  lii.  10$.  and  his  companye  for  his  pastyme  at 

3  Cf.  App.  A)  no.  xii.  Whitsontyde  xiij8  iiija.' 


io  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  Chap.  I 

was  increased  to  £20  by  the  charter.   This  was  much  more 
than  the  £12  $s.  paid  at  Warwick  or  than  the  amounts 
usual  in  Elizabethan  grammar  schools,  outside  West- 
minster,  Eton,   Winchester,  and  Shrewsbury.    It  was 
better  than  the  emoluments  of  an  Oxford  or  Cambridge 
fellowship.  And  from  Oxford  or  Cambridge  came  William 
Smart  (1554-65),  Fellow  of  Christ's,  John  Browns  word 
(1565-7),  a  Latin  poet  of  repute,  John  Acton  (1567-9), 
Walter  Roche  (1569-71),  Fellow  of  Corpus,  Oxford, 
Simon  Hunt  (1571-5),  afterwards  a  Jesuit  at  Douai  and 
English  penitentiary  at  Rome,  Thomas  Jenkins  (i  575-9), 
Fellow  of  St.  John's,  Oxford,  who  came  from  Warwick, 
John  Cottam  (1579-81),  and  Alexander  Aspinall  (1581- 
1624).  The  actual  curriculum  of  the  school  is  unknown; 
it  was  probably  based  on  those  planned  by  Colet  for  St. 
Paul's  in  1518  and  Wolsey  for  Ipswich  in  1529,  and  not 
unlike  that  in  force  at  St.  Bees  in  1583.    Colet  required 
an  entrant  to  be  able  to  'rede  and  write  Latyn  and  Eng- 
lisshe  sufficiently,  soo  that  he  be  able  to  rede  and  wryte 
his  owne  lessons'.1    But  London  had  its  sufficiency  of 
elementary  schools,  and  the  easier  standard  of  Stratford 
was  content  if  a  child  was  'fet  for  the  gramer  scoll  or  at 
the  least  wyez  entred  or  reddy  to  enter  into  ther  accydence 
&  princypalles  of  gramer'.2  Even  the  preparation  seems  at 
first  to  have  been  given  by  an  usher  attached  to  the  gram- 
mar school,  whom  the  chamberlains  paid  'for  techyng  ye 
chylder'.   But  by  1604  an  independent  teacher  had  for 
some  time  taught  reading  and  his  wife  needlework, 
'whereby  our  young  youth  is  well  furthered  in  reading  and 
the  Free  School  greatly  eased  of  that  tedious  trouble'^ 
In  the  grammar  school  itself  there  would  be  little  but 
Latin;  the  grammar  of  Colet  himself  and  William  Lilly, 
revised  and  appointed  for  use  in  schools  under  successive 
sovereigns;  some  easy  book  of  phrases,  such  as  the  Sen- 
tentiae  Pueriles  of  Leonhard  Culmann  or  the  Pueriles 
Confabulatiunculae  of  Evaldus  Callus;  Aesop's  Fables  and 
the  Moral Distichs  of  Cato;  Cicero,  Sallust,  or  Caesar,  Ovid 
in  abundance,  Virgil,  perhaps  Horace  or  Terence;  pro- 

1  J.  xUv.  66.  *  M.A.  i.  34.  a  M.A.  i.  128$  iii.  ». 


Chap.  I  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  n 

bably  some  Renaissance  writing,  the  Bucolica  of  Baptista 
Spagnolo  Mantuanus  or  the  Zodiacus  Vitae  of  Marcellus 
Palingenius.  There  is  not  likely  to  have  been  any  Greek. 
About  sixteen  a  boy  was  ripe  for  the  University.  Sir  Hugh 
Clopton  had  left  six  exhibitions  to  Oxford  and  Cambridge; 
it  is  not  known  whether  the  Corporation  continued  them.1 
Such  was  the  environment  of  the  youthful  Shakespeare. 
His  father,  John  Shakespeare,  was  not  of  native  Stratford 
stock;  there  are  no  Shakespeares  in  the  gild  register. 
John  makes  his  first  appearance  in  Stratford  at  a  leet 
of  29  April  1552,  when  he  was  fined  one  shilling  for 
having  an  unauthorized  dunghill  in  Henley  St.  He  may 
reasonably  be  identified  with  a  John  Shakespeare  of 
Snitterfield,  who  administered  the  estate  of  his  father 
Richard  in  1 561.2  Richard  had  held  land  on  two  manors 
at  Snitterfield,  in  part  as  tenant  to  Robert  Arden  of  Wilm- 
cote  in  Aston  Cantlow.  He  is  traceable  there  from  1 528- 
9,  and  may  possibly  have  come  from  Hampton  Corley  in 
Budbrooke.  But  his  ultimate  origin  has  eluded  research. 
When  grants  of  arms  to  John  Shakespeare  were  applied 
for,  the  heralds  recited  ancestral  service  to  Henry  VII 
and  a  reward  of  lands  in  Warwickshire.  No  confirm- 
ing record  has  been  found.  Shakespeares  were  thick 
on  the  ground  in  sixteenth-century  Warwickshire,  par- 
ticularly in  the  Woodland  about  Wroxall  and  Rowington 
to  the  north  of  Stratford.^  A  Richard  Shakespeare  was 
in  fact  bailiff  of  Wroxall  manor  in  1534,  but  his  after- 
history  is  known,  and  excludes  a  suggested  identity  with 
Richard  of  Snitterfield.  Other  affiliations  have  been  tried 
in  vain.  There  was  some  cousinship  between  the  poet  and 
a  family  of  Greene  in  Warwick,  which  may  one  day  yield 
a  clue.  John  Shakespeare,  as  administrator  to  his  father,  is 
called  agrlcola  or  husbandman.  Later  his  brother  Henry 
is  found  holding  land  at  Snitterfield,  where  he  died,  much 
indebted,  in  1596.  Other  documents  call  John  a  yeoman. 
Technically  a  yeoman  was  a  freeholder  of  land  to  the 
annual  value  of  fifty  shillings,  but  the  description  was 
often  applied  to  any  well-to-do  man  short  of  a  gentleman. 

1  Leach  243.  a  Cf.  App.  A,  no.  ii.  *  C£  App.  E. 


iz  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  Chap.  I 

A  more  precise  designation  is  that  of  'glover1  or  *whit- 
tawer'.  A  whittawer  cured  and  whitened  the  soft  skins 
which  were  the  material  of  the  glover's  craft.  There  can 
be  little  doubt  that  John  Shakespeare  combined  these  oc- 
cupations, and  was  a  freeman  of  the  Mystery  of  the 
Glovers,  Whittawers  and  Collarmakers,  which  was  one  of 
the  Stratford  trade  gilds.  It  does  not  weigh  for  much 
against  the  contemporary  use  of  these  terms  that  John 
Aubrey  called  him  a  butcher  in  1681,  and  that  Nicholas 
Rowe,  who  made  the  first  attempt  at  a  systematic  bio- 
graphy of  the  poet  in  1709,  called  him  a  wool-dealer.1 
Likely  enough,  he  had  subordinate  activities;  he  is  men- 
tioned as  selling  both  barley  and  timber.  It  is  possible 
that  he  is  the  John  Shakespeare  who  was  tenant  of  Ingon 
meadow  in  Bishop's  Hampton  about  1570.  He  is  clearly 
distinct  from  a  John  Shakespeare  of  Clifford  Chambers, 
traceable  there  from  1560  to  his  death  in  1610,  and  from 
a  second  John  Shakespeare  of  Stratford,  a  corvizer  who 
dwelt  in  the  town  from  1586  to  about  1595,  and  whose 
progeny  early  biographers  confused  with  his,2  The  poet's 
father  married  Mary  Arden,  daughter  of  that  Robert  from 
whom  the  grandfather  had  held  land.  He  was  of  the 
ancient  house  of  the  Ardens  of  Park  Hall,  although  the 
precise  degree  of  relationship  is  uncertain.3  Mary  was  a 
co-heiress  in  a  small  way.  Robert  left  her  some  land  in 
Wilmcote  called  Asbies  by  his  will  of  1556,  and  had 
probably  already  settled  other  property  there  upon  her. 
She  was  also  entitled  to  a  share  in  a  reversionary  interest 
of  his  Snitterfield  estate,-*  The  marriage  must  have  taken 
place  between  the  date  of  the  will  and  i$  September 
1558,  when  a  daughter  Joan  was  christened  at  Stratford. 
She  must  have  died  early.  There  followed  Margaret 
(c.  1562,  b.  1563),  William  (c.  26  April  1564),  Gilbert 
(c.  1566),  a  second  Joan  (c.  1569),  Anne  (c.  1571,  b, 
1579),  Richard  (c.  1574),  and  Edmund  (c.  1580).  The 

'  App.  C,  nos.  xiii,  xxv.  The  wool-  >  Cf.  App.  A,  no.  i  (a),  fc). 

dealer  tradition  established  itself  at  '  Cf.  App.  A,  no.  ii. 

Stratfordj  cf.  App.  A,  no.  iiij  App.  Q  4  Cf.  App.  A,  no.  iv. 
nos.  xlvi,  liv. 


Chap.  I  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  13 

actual  day  of  William's  birth  is  unknown.  A  belief  that 
it  was  April  23,  on  which  day  he  died  in  1616,  seems  to 
rest  on  an  eighteenth-century  blunder.1  In  1556  John 
Shakespeare  bought  two  houses,  one  in  Henley  St.  and 
one  in  Greenhill  St.  In  1575  he  bought  two  other  houses, 
the  locality  of  which  is  not  specified.  In  1590  he  owned 
two  contiguous  houses  in  Henley  St.  Of  these  the 
westernmost  is  now  called  the  'Birthplace'  and  the  eastern- 
most the  '  Woolshop'.  But  this  tradition  does  not  go  back 
beyond  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Certainly 
the  'Woolshop1  was  the  purchase  of  1556.  But  whether 
John  was  living  in  the  'Birthplace*  in  1552,  or  whether 
he  was  then  living  as  a  tenant  in  the  'Woolshop1,  and 
bought  the  'Birthplace'  in  1575,  has  not  been  established.2 
However  this  may  be,  the  purchases  suggest  that  John 
Shakespeare  prospered  in  business.  And  he  became 
prominent  in  municipal  life.a  Between  1557  and  1561  he 
appears  as  juror,  constable,  and  'affeeror'  or  assessor  of 
fines  at  the  court  leet,  and  was  himself  again  fined  for 
leaving  his  gutter  dirty  and  for  not  making  presentments 
as  ale-taster  before  the  court  of  record.  In  1561  and 
1562  he  was  chosen  as  one  of  the  chamberlains,  and  it  is 
perhaps  evidence  of  his  financial  capacity  that  he  acted, 
quite  exceptionally,  as  deputy  to  the  chamberlains  of 
the  next  two  years.  Probably  he  was  already  a  capital 
burgess  by  1561,  although  his  name  first  appears  in  a  list 
of  1 564.  His  subscriptions  to  the  relief  of  the  poor  during 
that  year  of  plague-time  are  liberal.  In  1565  he  was 
chosen  an  alderman,  and  in  1568  reached  the  top  of 
civic  ambition  as  bailiff.  In  view  of  contemporary 
habits,  it  is  no  proof  of  inability  to  write  that  he  was 
accustomed  to  authenticate  documents  by  a  mark,  which 
was  sometimes  a  cross  and  sometimes  a  pair  of  glover's 
dividers.4  But  it  is  unfortunate,  because  it  leaves  us  igno- 
rant as  to  how  he  spelt  his  name.  The  town-clerk,  a 
constant  scribe,  makes  it  'Shakspeyr'  with  great  regularity; 

1  Cf.  App.  A,  no.  i(a).  4  C.  Sisson,  Marks  as  Signatures 

*  Cf,  App.  Ay  no.  iii.  (Z928>  4  Library,  ix.  22),  is  sceptical. 

'  CLM.A.  passim. 


14  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  Chap.  I 

but  some  twenty  variants  are  found  in  Stratford  docu- 
ments.1 After  a  customary  interval  John,  like  other  ex- 
bailiffs,  was  again  justice  of  the  peace  as  chief  alderman 
in  1571.  A  few  years  later  there  are  indications  of  a 
decline  in  his  fortunes.  Throughout  his  career  there  had 
been  suits  by  and  against  him  for  small  sums  in  the  court 
of  record.  These,  however,  appear  to  have  been  part  of 
the  ordinary  routine  of  business  transactions  as  conducted 
in  Stratford.  An  occasional  appearance  in  the  High  Courts 
involved  larger  sums.  In  1571  John  proceeded  against 
Richard  Quiney,  the  son  of  an  old  colleague  Adrian 
Quiney,  for  ^50.  In  1573  he  had  himself  to  meet  the 
claim  of  Henry  Higford,  a  former  steward  of  Stratford, 
for  j£3°-  He  failed  to  appear  and  a  warrant  for  his  arrest, 
and  if  not  found,  outlawry,  was  issued.  He  was  still  in 
a  position  to  spend  £40  on  house  property  in  1575.  But 
at  the  beginning  of  1577  he  suddenly  discontinued  at- 
tendance at  the  'halls'  of  the  Corporation,  and  never  again 
appeared,  except  on  one  or  two  special  occasions.  In  the 
following  year  he  was  excused  from  a  levy  for  the  relief 
of  the  poor,  and  rated  at  an  exceptionally  low  amount  for 
the  expenses  of  the  musters,  which  still  remained  unpaid 
in  1 579.  His  wife's  inheritance  was  disposed  of.  The  small 
reversion  in  Snitterfield  was  sold  for  ^4.  Asbies  was  let 
at  a  nominal  rent,  probably  in  consideration  of  a  sum  down. 
The  other  Wilmcote  holding  was  mortgaged  to  Mary's 
brother-in-law  Edmund  Lambert  for  ^40,  to  be  repaid  at 
Michaelmas  1580.  It  was  not  repaid.  John  Shakespeare 
afterwards  claimed  that  he  had  tendered  payment,  and 
that  it  was  refused  because  he  still  owed  other  sums  to 
Lambert.  This  he  does  not  seem  to  have  established.  He 
also  maintained  that  Lambert's  son  John,  to  whom  posses- 
sion passed  in  1587,  agreed  to  buy  the  property  outright 
from  the  Shakespeares  and  their  son  William,  and  failed 
to  keep  his  agreement.  This  John  Lambert  denied. 
There  was  litigation  in  1589  and  again  in  1597,  but  the 
property  proved  irrecoverable.2  A  singular  incident  of 
1 580  still  lacks  an  explanation.  John  Shakespeare  and  one 

1  Cf.  App.  E,  no.  iii.  a  App.  A,  no.  iv. 


Chap.  I  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  15 

John  Audley,  a  hat-maker  of  Nottingham,  were  bound 
over  in  the  Court  of  Queen's  Bench  to  give  security  against 
a  breach  of  the  peace.  They  failed  to  answer  to  their 
recognizances  and  incurred  substantial  fines.  That  of 
Shakespeare  amounted  to  £20  for  his  own  default  and  £20 
more  as  surety  for  Audley.1  In  1587  an  entanglement 
with  the  affairs  of  his  brother  Henry  seems  to  have  added 
to  his  embarrassment.  And  in  the  same  year  the  patience 
of  the  Corporation  was  exhausted,  and  a  new  alderman 
was  appointed  in  his  place,  'for  that  Mr  Shaxspere  dothe 
not  come  to  the  halles  when  they  be  warned  nor  hathe  not 
done  of  longe  tyme'.2  Further  court  of  record  suits 
suggest  that  he  was  still  engaged  in  business.  On  25 
September  1592  he  was  included  in  a  list  of  persons  at 
Stratford  'hearetofore  presented  for  not  comminge  moneth- 
lie  to  the  churche  according^  to  hir  Majesties  lawes' ;  and 
to  his  name  and  those  or  eight  others  is  appended  the 
note,  'It  is  sayd  that  these  laste  nine  coom  not  to  churche 
for  feare  of  process  for  debtte'.3  As  arrest  for  debt  could 
be  made  on  Sundays  in  the  sixteenth  century,  the  explana- 
tion seems,  in  the  light  of  John  Shakespeare's  career  since 
1577,  extremely  probable.  But  the  notion  of  a  religious 
romance  in  the  drab  life  of  a  town  councillor  has  proved 
too  much  for  his  biographers,  and  much  ingenuity  has 
been  spent  in  interpreting  what  little  is  known  of  John's 
personal  and  official  life  on  the  theory  that  he  was  in  fact 
a  recusant.  The  theorists  differ,  however,  as  to  whether 
he  was  a  Catholic  or  a  nonconforming  Puritan,  and  I  do 
not  think  that  there  is  much  to  support  either  contention. 
So  far  as  the  recusancy  returns  of  1592  are  concerned,  the 
positron  is  clear.  They  had  nothing  to  do,  as  has  been 
suggested  by  a  confusion  of  dates,  with  the  anti-Puritan 
legislation  of  1593.  In  1591  England  was  expecting  a 
renewed  Spanish  attempt  at  invasion,  and  county  com- 
missions were  issued  and  announced  by  proclamations  of 

1  M.A.  iii.  6Z,  from  CoramRege  Roll,  M.A.  iv.  148,  159.     S topes,  Cont.  31, 

AngUa  2ob,  2ia,  Trin.  22  Eliz.  suggests  that  this  was  the  corvizer  (cf. 

*  M.A.  lii.  170.  vol.  ii,  p.  3)  of  whose  religion,  as  of  his 

3  S.P.D.  Ettz.  ccxliii.  76;  Grevttie  debts,  we  know  nothing. 
Papers  (Warwick  Castle)  26625  texts  in 


16  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  Chap.  I 

October  18,*  The  instructions  to  the  commissioners  are 
known.  They  were  to  collect  the  names  of  those  who  did 
not  attend  church,  not  to  'press  any  persons  to  answer  to  any 
questions  of  their  conscience  for  matters  of  religion',  but 
if  they  found  wilful  recusants,  to  examine  them  as  to  their 
allegiance  to  the  Queen,  their  devotion  to  the  Pope  or  the 
King  of  Spain,  and  any  maintenance  of  Jesuits  or  seminary 
priests.  Clearly  Catholics  alone,  and  not  Puritans,  were  in 
danger.  Beyond  the  return  itself,  the  only  document 
which  may  bear  upon  John  Shakespeare's  religion  is  the 
devotional  will  or  mtamentum  animae  found  in  the  roof  of 
one  of  his  Henley  St.  houses  in  the  eighteenth  century.2 
I  do  not  think  that  this  is  a  forgery,  but  if  the  John 
Shakespeare  who  made  it  was  the  poet's  father,  it  pro- 
bably dates  from  his  early  life,  and  carries  little  evidence 
as  to  his  religious  position  under  Elizabeth.  Of  his  per- 
sonality there  may  be  some  genuine  reminiscence  in  a 
seventeenth-century  report  of  how  a  visitor,  as  to  whose 
identity  there  must  be  some  blunder,  found  in  his  shop 
'a  merry  cheeked  old  man  that  said  "Will  was  a  good 
honest  fellow,  but  he  durst  have  cracked  a  jest  with  him 
at  any  time'".3  Although  no  longer  a  member  of  the 
Corporation,  John  was  called  upon  to  advise  them  on 
some  difficulties  with  the  lord  of  the  manor  in  1601.  And 
on  September  8  of  that  year  he  was  buried.  No  will  or 
administration  is  known,  but  of  all  the  property  which 
passed  through  his  hands,  only  the  Henley  St.  houses  are 
found  in  those  of  the  poet. 

Of  William  Shakespeare's  own  early  days  there  is  but 
little  on  record;  and  it  is  no  part  of  my  object  to  compete 
with  those  gifted  writers  who  have  drawn  upon  their 
acquaintance  with  Stratford  and  with  the  plays  for  the 
material  of  an  imaginative  reconstruction.  We  are  told 
by  Rowe,  presumably  on  the  authority  of  inquiries  made 
by  'Thomas  Betterton  at  Stratford,  that  his  father  bred 

1  Proctl.  837, 839;  Dasent,  xxii.  138,  nals  (i824),iv.  78;  St.  G.  K.  Hyland,  A 

174, 1 8 1,  205,  21 1, 227, 245,  3 16, 324,  Century  of  Persecution  (1920),  196, 407. 

3*5>  33*>  34°>  34*>  365>  3*9?  ¥>*>  4»7>  *  Cf.  App.  F,  no.  vi. 

5435  xxiii.  163, 188,  1915  Strype,  An-  3  App.  C,  no.  vii. 


Chap.  I  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  17 

him  at  a  free  school,  but  withdrew  him  owing  to  'the 
narrowness  of  his  circumstances,  and  the  want  of  his 
assistance  at  home',1  There  is  no  reason  to  reject  this, 
which  agrees  with  what  we  know  of  John's  financial 
history,  or  to  look  for  a  free  school  other  than  that  of 
Stratford  itself.  It  is  unfortunate  that  no  early  lists  of 
pupils  are  preserved  there.  Rowe's  words  suggest  a  some- 
what premature  withdrawal.  From  Stratford  also  comes 
the  earlier  report  of  one  Dowdall  (1693)  that  the  poet  had 
run  away  from  apprenticeship  to  a  butcher.*  He  does  not 
say  that  his  master  was  also  his  father.  But  the  story 
shows  that  Aubrey  was  not  alone  in  his  belief  as  to  John 
Shakespeare's  occupation,  which  he  confirms  by  saying 
that  William  followed  his  father's  trade  and  'when  he 
killM  a  calfe,  he  would  doe  it  in  a  high  style,  and  make  a 
speech*.3  Perhaps  this  really  points  to  some  early  exercise 
of  mimic  talent.  'Killing  a  calf  seems  to  have  been  an 
item  in  the  repertory  of  wandering  entertainers.4  Rowe 
also  learnt  of  Shakespeare's  early  marriage  and  departure 
from  Stratford  as  a  result  of  deer-stealing.  The  docu- 
ments concerning  the  marriage  involve  a  puzzle.5  It  took 
place  towards  the  end  of  1582,  not  in  the  parish  church 
of  Stratford,  or  in  any  of  the  numerous  likely  churches 
whose  registers  have  been  searched;  possibly  in  the  chapel 
at  Luddington,  where  an  entry  is  said  to  have  been  seen 
before  the  register  was  destroyed.  A  licence  for  it  was 
issued  from  the  episcopal  registry  at  Worcester  on  Novem- 
ber 27,  and  a  bond  to  hold  the  bishop  harmless  was,  given 
by  two  sureties  on  the  following  day.  The  procedure  was 
regular  enough,  and  carries  no  suggestion  of  family  dis- 
approval. But  the  register  of  licences  gives  the  bride's 
name  as  Anne  Whateley  of  Temple  Grafton  and  the  bond 
as  Anne  Hathwey  of  Stratford.  Once  more,  romantic 

1  App.  C,  no.  xxv.  grace  behynde  a  clothe'.   J.  Raine, 

3  App,  C,  no.  xviii.  Priory   of  Tinchde    (Surtees    Soc.)» 

3  App.  C,  no.  xiii.  ccccxli,  cites  a  'droll  performance* 

4  Collier,  i.  90,  from  Account  of  called  'killing  the  calf*  by  an  eigh- 
Pracess  Mary  for  Christmas  1521,  teenth-century  entertainer. 

*Itm  pd,  to  a  man  at  Wyndesore,  for         *  App.  A,  no.  v. 
kylling  of  a  calffe  before  my  ladys 


18  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  Chap.  I 

biography  has  scented  a  mystery.  The  probable  solution 
is  that  the  bond,  as  an  original  document,  is  correct,  and 
that  the  clerk  who  made  up  the  register  blundered.  Rowe, 
who  certainly  never  heard  of  the  bond,  knew  the  name  as 
Hathaway.  There  were  several  Hathaways  in  the  parish 
of  Stratford,  and  Anne's  parentage  is  not  quite  clear.  She 
may  have  been  of  Luddington,  but  more  likely  of  Shottery, 
where  one  Richard  Hathaway,  of  a  family  which  bore  the 
alias  of  Gardner,  occupied  the  tenement  of  Hewland, 
now  known  as  Anne  Hathaway's  cottage,  and  in  1581 
left  money  to  a  daughter  Agnes,  then  unmarried.  That 
Agnes  and  Anne,  in  common  usage  although  not  in  strict 
law,  were  regarded  as  forms  of  the  same  name  is  unques- 
tionable. If  there  was  any  element  of  haste  or  secrecy  in 
the  affair,  it  may  have  been  due  to  the  fact  that  Anne  was 
already  with  child.  A  kindly  sentiment  has  pleaded  the 
possible  existence  of  a  pre-contract  amounting  to  a  civil 
marriage.  A  daughter  Susanna  was  baptized  on  26  May 
1583,  and  followed  by  twins,  Hamnet  and  Judith,  on 
2  February  1585.  Guesses  at  godparents  are  idle  where 
common  names,  such  as  Shakespeare's  own,  are  con- 
cerned. But  those  of  the  twins,  which  are  unusual,  point 
to  Hamnet  or  Hamlet  Sadler,  a  baker  of  Stratford,  and 
his  wife  Judith. 

The  story  of  deer-stealing  has  been  the  subject  of  much 
controversy.  Rowe's  account  has  the  independent  con- 
firmation of  some  earlier  jottings  by  Richard  Davies  who 
became  rector  of  Sapperton  in  Gloucestershire  in  1695.* 
Probably,  like  Rowe,  he  drew  upon  local  gossip.  Rowe 
says  that  the  exploit  was  in  the  park  of  Sir  Thomas  Lucy 
of  Charlecote,  that  in  revenge  for  prosecution  by  Lucy 
Shakespeare  made  a  ballad  upon  him,  and  that  as  a  result 
of  further  prosecution  he  was  obliged  to  leave  Stratford. 
Davies  says  that  he  was  whipped  and  imprisoned  by  Lucy, 
and  that  in  revenge  he  depicted  Lucy  as  a  justice  with 
'three  lowses  rampant  for  his  arms'.  There  is  an  obvious 
reference  here  to  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  i,  i,  in  which 
Justice  Shallow  complains  that  Falstaff  has  beaten  his 

1  App.  C,  nos.  OT,  xjnr. 


Chap.  I  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  19 

men,  killed  his  deer,  and  broken  open  his  lodge,  and 
threatens  to  make  a  Star  Chamber  matter  of  it  as  a  riot. 
He  is  said  to  bear  a  'dozen  white  luces'  in  his  coat,  and 
Sir  Hugh  Evans  makes  the  jest  on  louses.  The  Lucy 
family  had  held  Charlecote  since  the  twelfth  century,  and 
bore  the  arms  Vair>  three  luces  hauriant  argent.1  The  Sir 
Thomas  of  Shakespeare's  day  was  a  prominent  justice  of 
peace,  and  represented  Warwickshire  in  the  parliaments 
of  1571  and  1 584-5 .2  It  has  been  held  that  the  whole 
story  is  nothing  but  a  myth  which  has  grown  up  about 
the  passage  in  the  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  itself.  But  I  do 
not  think  that,  so  far  as  the  essential  feature  is  concerned, 
we  are  called  upon  to  reject  it.  Deer-stealing  was  a  common 
practice  enough,  and  was  regarded  as  a  venial  frolic,  even 
for  young  men  of  higher  standing  than  Shakespeare's, 
Details  are  another  matter.  Lucy  cannot  have  whipped 
Shakespeare,  if  he  proceeded  under  the  ruling  game  law 
of  1563,  in  which  the  only  penalty  prescribed  was  im- 
prisonment. Possibly,  if  the  affair  could  be  regarded  as  a 
riot,  it  might  bear  a  more  serious  complexion.  Nor  does 
Lucy  appear  to  have  had  a  'park',  in  the  legal  sense,  at 
Charlecote.  At  his  death  in  1600  he  had  only  a  free- 
warren.  It  is  true  that  the  learned  lawyer  Sir  Edward 
Coke  included  roe-deer,  but  not  fallow  deer,  among  beasts 
of  warren,  and  although  other  authorities  appear  to  dis- 
sent, it  was  certainly  so  decided  in  1339.3  It  is  also  true 
that  the  Act  of  1563  appears  to  give  protection  to  deer  in 
any  enclosure  then  existing,  whether  it  was  a  legally  en- 
closed park  or  not,  and  the  free-warren  at  Charlecote  may 
well  have  come  under  this  provision.  If  the  deer  was  not  in 

1  The  coat  is  repeated  in  four  quar-  indeed,  seems  to  have  been  concerned 

tarings,  making  a  dozen  luces,  on  a  with  pheasants  and  partridges,   not 

Lucy  tomb  at  Warwick  (Dugdale,  deer  (S.  D'Ewes,  Journals  of  Partia- 

.  348).  mcnts,  321,  327,  363,  366,  369,  373, 

*  He  led   a    Committee    (4  Mar.  374). 

1585)  for  considering  a  Bill  for  the  *  G.  J.  Turner,  Select  Pleas  of  the 

preservation  of  game  and  grain,  which  Forest  (1901)9  x,   from   decision  of 

did   not   become   law,    but  he  was  King's  Bench,  'Caprioli  sunt  bestiac 

replaced  on  a  later  Committee,  and  de  warenna  et  non  de  foresta  eo  quod 

there  is  no  reason  to  assume  that  he  was  fugant  alias  feras  de  foresta*. 
an  active  promoter  of  the  Bill,  which, 

C  2 


20  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  Chap.  I 

an  enclosure  protected  by  the  game  law,  any  foray  upon 
it  would  have  been  no  more  than  a  trespass,  to  be  remedied 
by  civil  action,  and  neither  whipping  nor  imprisonment 
would  have  been  possible.  Rowe,  however,  only  speaks 
of  prosecution,  and  of  a  ballad,  which  may  have  amounted 
to  a  criminal  libel.  A  single  stanza,  claimed  as  the  opening 
of  this  ballad  and  containing  the  jest  on  lousiness,  came 
into  the  hands  both  of  William  Oldys  and  of  Edward 
Capell  in  the  eighteenth  century,  with  a  history  ascribing 
it  to  information  derived  from  inhabitants  of  Stratford  by 
a  Mr.  Jones  who  died  in  1703.*  If  so,  it  represents  a 
third  tradition  as  old  as  those  of  Davies  and  Rowe.  A 
complete  version  produced  in  1790  by  John  Jordan,  an 
out-at-elbows  poet  and  guide  for  strangers  in  Stratford, 
was  probably  not  beyond  his  own  capacities  for  fabrica- 
tion.2 There  is,  however,  yet  another  alleged  fragment  of 
the  ballad,  in  a  different  metre,  said  on  very  poor  authority 
to  have  been  picked  up  at  Stratford  about  1690  by  the 
Cambridge  professor  Joshua  Barnes.3  Its  jest  on  deer 
horns  carries  the  familiar  Elizabethan  insinuation  of 
cuckoldry  against  Lucy,  whose  monument  to  his  wife  at 
Charlecote  lauds  her  domestic  virtues.  Obviously  the 
fragments  are  inconsistent,  and  neither  is  likely  to  be 
genuine.  But  some  weight  must  be  attached  to  the  four- 
fold testimony  through  Davies,  Rowe,  Jones,  and  Barnes 
to  a  tradition  of  the  deer-stealing  as  alive  at  Stratford 
about  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century.  There  is  later 
embroidery  which  need  not  be  taken  seriously.4  A  writer 
in  the  Biografhia  Eritannica  (1763)  ascribes  Shakespeare's 
release  from  imprisonment  to  the  intervention  of  Eliza- 
beth; another  in  1862,  professedly  on  the  authority  of 
records  at  Charlecote,  to  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  who  died  in 
1588,  but  to  a  pique  of  whom  against  Lucy  the  inspiration 
of  the  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  is  none  the  less  attributed. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  perhaps  owing 
to  the  discovery  that  there  was  no  park  at  Charlecote,  the 

1  App.  C,  nos.  xxxiv,  xliv.  *  App.  C,  nos.  xli,  xlvi,  xlix,  li,  liv, 

2  App.  C,  no.  xlvi.  Ivii,  Iviii. 

3  App.  C,  no.  xvi. 


Chap.  I  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  21 

story  was  transferred  to  the  neighbouring  park  of  Fulbrook. 
This,  however,  had  been  disparked  by  1557,  was  not  in 
the  hands  of  the  Lucy  family  during  Shakespeare's  boy- 
hood, but  was  bought  by  them  in  1615  and  subsequently 
re-emparked.  Some  hit  at  Sir  Thomas  is  probably  involved 
in  the  Merry  Wive$  of  Windsor  passage.  But  it  would  not 
be  a  justifiable  inference  that  the  presentment  of  Justice 
Shallow  as  a  whole,  especially  in  Henry  IF,  is  in  any  way 
meant  to  be  a  portrait'  of  the  worthy  justice.  Such  por- 
traiture seems,  to  me  at  least,  quite  alien  from  the  method 
of  Shakespeare's  art.  A  belief,  once  established,  that  a 
distinguished  citizen  of  Stratford  had  enjoyed  a  wildish 
youth,  may  have  encouraged  the  later  tales  of  Shake- 
speare's drinking  exploits,  for  which  no  origin  other  than 
the  inventiveness  of  innkeepers  need  be  sought.1 

We  cannot  give  any  precise  date  to  the  Hegira.  A  story 
current  at  Stratford  in  1 8 1 8  that  the  venison  was  stolen 
to  grace  the  marriage  feast  is  obviously  part  of  the  em- 
broidery. Children  can  be  baptized  but  not  begotten 
without  a  father,  and  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
Shakespeare  was  still  in  Stratford  during  1584.*  We  do 
not  know  whether  his  wife  was  at  any  time  the  companion 
of  his  absence.  There  is  no  record  of  her  in  London,  and 
none  in  Stratford  until  after  the  purchase  of  New  Place. 
But  the  boy  Hamnet  was  buried  at  Stratford-on  1 1  August 
1596.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  no  proof  of  Shakespeare's 
continuance  in  Stratford  that  according  to  his  father's 
allegation  he  concurred  in  the  offer  to  sell  the  Wilmcote 
property  to  John  Lambert  about  1587.3  This  seems  to 
have  been  only  an  oral  transaction,  and  wherever  William 
was,  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he  was  beyond 
communication  with  his  family.  The  words  of  Rowe's 
deer-stealing  narrative  and  of  Dowdall's  parallel  story  of 
an  escape  from  apprenticeship  imply  a  migration  direct 

1  App.  C,  nos.  xl,  xlvi.  Dwell  at  London.  W.  S.  was  a  Will', 

2  James  Yates,  servingman,  in  The  but  the  date  is  too  early,  and  there  are 
Holds  ofHumititie,  17,  printed  with  his  indications  in  the  book  which  suggest 
Castell  of  Courtesie  (1582),  has  colour-  a  Suffolk  author. 

less  Verses  written  at  the  Departure  of        3  App.  A,  no.  iv. 
his  friende  W.  S.    When  he  went  to 


22  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  Chap.  I 

to  London.  But  these  can  hardly  be  pressed.  We  have 
no  certainty  of  Shakespeare's  presence  in  London  before 
1 592,  when  a  scoffing  notice  by  Robert  Greene  shows  that 
he  was  already  an  actor  and  had  already  begun  to  write 
plays.1  This  is  no  doubt  consistent  with  some  earlier 
sojourn,  which  may  have  been  of  no  long  duration.  A 
supposed  earlier  allusion  to  him  as  'Willy*  in  Spenser's 
Tears  of  the  Muses  (1591)  is  now,  I  think,  universally 
rejected.2  We  have  therefore  a  very  considerable  hiatus  in 
his  history,  extending  over  a  maximum  of  eight  years  from 
1584  to  1592,  to  take  into  account;  and  it  is  obvious  that 
many  things  may  have  occupied  this  interval,  of  which 
we  are  ignorant.  Tradition,  apart  from  some  statements 
as  to  his  introduction  into  theatrical  life,  has  done  little 
to  fill  the  gap.  It  was  the  actor  William  Beeston  who  told 
Aubrey  that  he  had  been  a  schoolmaster  in  the  country.3 
Beeston's  memory  might  well  go  back  to  Shakespeare's 
own  lifetime,  and  the  statement  is  not  in  itself  incredible. 
The  course  at  Stratford,  even  if  not  curtailed,  would 
hardly  have  qualified  him  to  take  charge  of  a  grammar 
school;  but  his  post  may  have  been  no  more  than  that  of 
an  usher  or  an  abecedarius.  Nor  need  we  suppose  that 
his  studies,  even  in  the  classics,  terminated  with  his 
school-days.  The  most  direct  contemporary  evidence  is 
that  of  Ben  Jonson,  who  ascribed  to  him  but  'small  Latin, 
and  less  Greek7,  writing  naturally  enough  from  the  stand- 
point of  his  own  considerable  scholarship.4  There  has 
been  much  argument  on  this  subject  from  the  time  of 
Richard  Farmer's  Essay  on  the  Learning  of  Shakespeare 
(1767),  and  much  enumeration  of  the  books,  ancient  and 
modern,- erudite  and  popular,  which  may,  directly  or  in- 
directly, have  contributed  material  to  his  plays.  The  in- 
ferences have  not  always  been  discreet.  The  attempt,  for 
example,  of  Professor  Churton  Collins  to  establish  a 
familiarity  with  the  Greek  tragedians  rests  largely  upon 
analogies  of  thought  and  expression  which  may  have  had 
a  natural  origin  out  of  analogous  situations.  A  saner 

1  App.  B,  no.  iiij  cf.  p.  58.  3  App.  C,  no.  xiii. 

8  App.  B,  no.  i.  4  App.  B,.no.  xxii. 


Chap.  I  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  23 

judgement  is  that  of  Professor  Henry  Jackson,  who  after 
a  careful  survey  of  the  evidence  found  no  exceptional 
learning,  but  merely  an  example  of  a  familiarity  with 
classical  themes,  more  widespread  in  Elizabethan  days 
than  in  our  own,  and  not  indicative  of  anything  beyond 
a  grammar-school  education.1    One  may  reasonably  as- 
sume that  at  all  times  Shakespeare  read  whatever  books, 
original  or  translated,  came  in  his  way.  It  has  been  asked 
where  he  found  them  in  the  absence  of  public  libraries. 
Did  he  borrow  from  the  Earl  of  Southampton,  or  from  • 
Jonson  or  from  Camden,  or  did  he  merely  turn  over  their 
leaves  on  the  stationers'  stalls?  These  are  foolish  questions, 
to  which  I  proposeno  answers.  We  do  not  know  what  library 
he  had  of  his  own.  Many  volumes  bear  his  signatures,  and 
they  are  mostly  forgeries.  Some  claim  has  been  made  for 
an  Aldine  Metamorphoses  of  1502,  for  a  translated  Mon- 
taigne of  1603,  and  for  a  translated  Plutarch  of  i6i2.2 
Sceptics  point  out  that  he  named  no  books  in  his  will; 
there  was  no  reason  why  he  should,  unless  he  wished^to 
dispose  of  them  apart  from  his  other  chattels.   As  with 
Shakespeare's  general  learning,  so  with  his  law..  His  writ- 
ing abounds  in  legal  terminology,  closely  woven  into  the 
structure  of  his  .metaphor.    Here,  again,  the  knowledge 
is  extensive  rather  than  exact.    It  is  shared  by  other 
dramatists.  Our  litigious  ancestors  had  a  familiarity  with 
legal  processes,  from  which  we  are  happily  exempt.  But 
many  have  thought  that  Shakespeare  must  have  had  some 
professional  experience  of  a  lawyer's  office,  although  this 
was  not  the  final  opinion  of  the  much-quoted  Lord  Camp- 
bell; and  there  are  those  who  will  tell  you  by  which 
Stratford  attorney  he  was  employed.    This  is  only  one 
instance  of  the  willingness  of  conjecture  to  step  in  where 
no  record  has  trod.  On  similar  grounds  Shakespeare  has 
been  represented  as  an  apothecary  and  a  student  of  medi- 
cine. That  he  was  a  soldier  rests  on  a  confusion  with  one 
of  many  William  Shakespeares  at  Rowington;  and  that  he 

'  Was  Shakespeare  of  Stratford  the     Jackson  O.M.  (1926). 
Author   of  Shakespeare's   Plays   and         *  Cf.  p.  506. 
Poems?  in  R.  St.  J,  Parry,  Henry 


24  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  Chap.  I 

was  a  printer  on  the  fact  that  Richard  Field,  who  issued 
his  poems,  came  from  Stratford.   In  a  sense,  these  con- 
flicting theories  refute  each  other.  However  acquired,  a 
ready  touch  over  a  wide  space  of  human  experience  was 
characteristic  of  Shakespeare.  For  some  of  this  experience 
we  need  look  no  farther  than  Stratford  itself;  the  early 
acquaintance  with  hunting  and  angling  and  fowling;  the 
keenly  noted  observation  of  rural  life,  mingling  oddly  with 
the  fabulous  natural  history  which  contemporary  literature 
inherited  from  the  medieval  bestiaries.    For  the  rest,  we 
cannot  tell  where  it  was  garnered.  But  we  are  entitled  to 
assume  a  roving  and  apperceptive  mind,  conversant  in 
some  way  with  many  men  and  manners,  and  gifted  with 
that  felicity  in  the  selection  and  application  of  varied 
knowledge,  which  is  one  of  the  secrets  of  genius.  What 
has  perhaps  puzzled  readers  most  is  the  courtesy  of  Shake- 
speare; his  easy  movement  in  the  give  and  take  of  social 
intercourse  among  persons  of  good  breeding.   We  have 
not,  indeed,  to  think  of  the  well-to-do  inhabitants  of 
Stratford  as  boors;  but  the  courtesy  of  a  provincial  town 
is  not  quite  the  courtesy  of  a  Portia.  Probably  the  true 
explanation  is  that,  once  more,  it  is  a  matter  of  appercep- 
tiveness,  of  a  temper  alive,  not  only  to  facts,  but  to  human 
values.  A  recent  writer  has  suggested,  with  no  support 
either  from  records  or  from  probability,  that  Shakespeare 
did  not  grow  up  at  Stratford  at  all,  but  was  carried  off  in 
childhood  to  learn  both  his  courtesy  and  his  Latin,  like 
Drayton,  as  a  page  in  the  household  of  Sir  Henry  Goodere 
of  Polesworth  near  Coventry.1  No  such  guess  is  needed, 
nor  can  a  similar  one  reasonably  be  based  on  a  statement 
of  a  not  very  reliable  writer  that  Fulke  Greville,  Lord 
Brooke,  the  son  of  Sir  Fulke  Greville,  of  Beauchamp's 
Court,  Alcester,  claimed  to  have  been  the  'master'  of  both 
Shakespeare  and  Ben  Jonson.  Greville  was  a  patron  of 
poets,  but  there  is  nothing  to  show  to  what  period  the 
claim,  if  it  was  made,  related.2 

A  sprinkling  of  Shakespearfcs  in  the  southern  Cotswolds 

1  A.  Gray,  A  Chapter  in  the  Early        *  App,  C,  no.  x. 
Life  of  Shakespeare  (1926). 


Chap.  I  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  25 

and  a  'tradition*  cited  in  1848  of  a  residence  by  the  poet 
at  Dursley  have  led  to  the  supposition  that  he  may  there 
have  found  a  temporary  refuge.  Justice  Shallow  is  asked 
to  countenance  William  Visor  of  Woncote  against 
Clement  Perkes  of  the  hill;  and  it  is  pointed  out  that  a 
Vizard  was  bailiff  at  Dursley  in  1612,  and  that  neighbouring 
families  of  Vizard  of  Woncot  or  Woodmancote  and  Perkes 
of  Stinchcombe  Hill  long  survived.1  The  conjunction  of 
names  might  be  more  than  a  coincidence.  But  Perkes  itself 
was  a  common  name  in  Warwickshire  and  Worcestershire 
as  well  as  in  Gloucestershire,  and  in  fact  a  Clement  Perkes 
was  born  at  Fladbury,  Worcestershire,  in  1568.  Many 
Shakespearean  names  occur  in  Stratford  documents.  On 
most  little  stress  can  be  laid.  It  is  intriguing  to  find  a 
Fluellen  and  a  Bardolfe  in  the  same  list  of  recusants  as 
Shakespeare's  father,  although  Shakespeare  knew  Bar- 
dolfe as  the  title  of  a  nobleman,  and  a  Stephen  Sly  of 
Stratford z  to  match  the  Christopher  and  Stephen  Sly  of 
The  Taming  of  the  Shrew>  although  'Slie'  and  'Don  Christo 
Vary'  were  already  given  by  the  source-play  of  A  Shrew. 
Christopher  Sly,  however,  calls  himself  of  Burton  Heath, 
presumably  Barton-on-the-Heath,  where  the  Lamberts 
dwelt;  and  Marian  Hacket,  the  fat  ale-wife  of  Wincot,  must 
belong  to  the  Wincot  which  lies  partly  in  Clifford  Cham- 
bers and  partly  in  Quinton,  where  a  Sara  Hacket  was 
baptized  in  1 59 1 .3  It  is  perhaps  only  a  fancy  that  Clement 
Swallow,  who  sued  John  Shakespeare  for  debt  in  1559, 
may  have  contributed  with  Sir  Thomas  Lucy  to  the 
making  of  Justice  Shallow  of  Clement's  Inn.4  It  seems  to 
have  been  a  Restoration  stage-tradition  that  a  ghost  scene 
in  Hamlet  was  inspired  by  a  charnel-house  in  Stratford 
churchyard;  one  would  have  thought  the  setting  more 
appropriate  to  the  grave-digger  scene.5  Possibly  the 
drowning  of  a  Katherine  Hamlet  at  Tiddington  on  the 
Avon  in  1579  may  have  given  a  hint  for  Ophelia's  end.6 

1  Madden,  86,  372.  4  10  N.Q.  x.  286. 

2  H.P.  ii.  296,  says  'Christopher*  in         s  App.  C,  no.  xxi. 
error.  6  M.A.  iii.  50. 

«  Cf.  App.  C,  no.  viii. 


26  SHAKESPEARE'S  ORIGIN  Chap.  I 

All  this  amounts  to  very  little.  Whatever  imprint  Shake- 
speare's Warwickshire  contemporaries  may  have  left  upon 
his  imagination  inevitably  eludes  us.  The  main  fact  in  his 
earlier  career  is  still  that  unexplored  hiatus,  and  who  shall 
say  what  adventures,  material  and  spiritual,  six  or  eight 
crowded  Elizabethan  years  may  have  brought  him.  It  is 
no  use  guessing.  As  in  so  many  other  historical  investiga- 
tions, after  all  the  careful  scrutiny  of  clues  and  all  the 
patient  balancing  of  possibilities,  the  last  word  for  a  self- 
respecting,  scholarship  can  only  be  that  of  nescience. 

4  Ah,  what  a  dusty  answer  gets  the  soul, 
When  hot  for  certainties  in  this  our  life!' 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  STAGE  IN  1592 

[Bibliographical  Note.  The  earlier  part  of  this  chapter  is  based  on  the 
discussions  in  The  Mediaeval  Stage  (1903)  and  The  Elizabethan  Stage 
(1923).  In  the  latter  part  I  have  attempted  to  track  more  closely  the 
downfall  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  company  from  1588,  and  to  restate  my 
conjectures  as  to  the  relations  of  the  companies  of  the  Lord  Admiral,  Lord 
Strange,  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  and  the  Earl  of  Sussex  during  1589-94 
in  the  light  of  criticisms  of  The  Elizabethan  Stage  by  W.  W.  Greg  in 
R.E.S.  i.  97,  257,  and  of  the  revival  of  an  older  view  as  to  the  origin  of 
Strange's  men  in  T.  W.  Baldwin,  The  Organisation  and  Personnel  of  the 
Shakespearean  Company  (1927).  Most  of  the  records  of  London  and  pro- 
vincial performances  from  1 5  88  are  in  Appendix  D.  Those  for  the  Queen's 
and  Sussex's  men  must  be  supplemented  from  J.  T.  Murray,  English 
Dramatic  Companies  (1910),  subject  to  some  corrections  and  additions 
from  sources  named  in  Eliz.  Stage,  ii.  i  and  the  Bibl.  Note  to  Appendix  D.] 

I  HAVE  elsewhere  described,  with  such  elaboration  of 
detail  as  the  envious  wallet  of  time  would  allow,  the 
gradual  establishment  of  a  habit  of  dramatic  representa- 
tion in  this  country;  tracing  its  analogies  to  certain 
mimetic  elements  in  the  customs  of  the  folk,  its  remark- 
able emergence  in  the  ritual  of  a  church  traditionally 
hostile  to  the  histrfoneS)  its  relations  to  outstanding  features 
of  medieval  society,  to  the  communal  celebrations  of 
religious  and  trade  gilds,  to  the  ludi  of  courtly  halls,  to 
the  varied  repertory  of  the  wandering  minstrels.  And 
I  have  endeavoured  to  show  how  the  medieval  passed 
into  the  Tudor  stage;  how  humanism  brought  a  new 
interest  in  the  drama  as  an  instrument  of  literary  and  moral 
education  and  even  of  theological  and  political  contro- 
versy; how  a  special  class  of  minstrels,  the  servants  of  the 
Crown  or  of  noble  lords,  made  acting  an  economic  pro- 
fession and  built  the  permanent  London  theatres;  and 
how  the  theatres,  buttressed  on  one  hand  by  a  paying  pub- 
lic and  on  the  other  by  court  patronage,  held  their  own 
against  puritan  opposition,  until  the  Tudor  polity  itself 
went  under  in  the  civil  and  religious  dissensions  of  the 
seventeenth  century. 

Any  intelligible  study,  however,  of  the  life  and  work  of 


28  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  Chap.  II 

the  playwright  Shakespeare  must  have  its  own  prelude  in 
a  retrospect  of  the  state  of  theatrical  affairs,  as  they  stood 
at  the  opening  of  the  last  Elizabethan  decade,  when  that 
playwright  made  his  first  appearance.  The  story  may  be- 
gin with  the  year  1583,  which  was  something  of  a  turning- 
point  in  the  history  of  the  playing  companies.  In  that  year 
Edmund  Tilney,  the  Master  of  the  Revels,  was  called 
upon  by  Sir  Francis  Walsingham,  the  Secretary  of  State, 
to  select  a  body  of  players  for  the  direct  service  of  the 
Queen,  Probably  Walsingham  was  acting  in  the  illness  of 
the  Lord  Chamberlain,  the  Earl  of  Sussex,  within  whose 
department  the  oversight  of  court  revels  properly  fell. 
The  Queen's  men  were  taken  from  the  most  important 
of  the  existing  companies,  those  of  the  Earl  of  Sussex 
himself,  of  the  Earls  of  Leicester  and  Oxford,  possibly  of 
the  Earl  of  Derby  and  Henry  Lord  Hunsdon.  All  these 
had  made  recent  appearances  at  court.  They  received  the 
rank  of  Grooms  of  the  Royal  Chamber,  probably  without 
fee,  and  were  entitled  to  wear  the  royal  livery  and  badge. 
The  reasons  for  the  appointment  must  be  matter  for  con- 
jecture. An  old  royal  company  of  interlude  players,  in- 
herited from  the  Queen's  father  and  grandfather,  had  been 
allowed  to  die  out  some  years  before.  In  a  sense  the  new 
men  took  their  place.  But  it  was  not  the  practice  of 
the  economical  Elizabeth  to  multiply  household  officers 
merely  as  appanages.  And  it  may  be  suspected  that  the 
departure  of  1583  was  an  incident  in  the  endeavour  of 
the  government  to  assert  a  direct  control  of  the  London 
stage  against  the  claims  of  the  City  corporation.  If  so,  it 
was  not  the  only  such  incident.  A  power  to  regulate  public 
entertainments  within  their  area  belonged  to  the  traditional 
privileges  of  the  City,  as  of  other  incorporated  towns. 
Moreover,  a  proclamation  issued  early  in  Elizabeth's  own 
reign,  on  16  May  1559,  had  specifically  imposed  upon 
mayors  of  towns,  as  upon  justices  of  peace  elsewhere,  the 
duty  of  licensing  plays,  and  had  instructed  them  to  dis- 
allow such  as  handled  'matters  of  religion  or  of  the 
gouernaunce  of  the  estate  of  the  common  weale'.  Ob- 
viously many  of  the  circumstances  of  plays  were  proper 


Chap.  II  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  29 

matter  for  local  control.  A  local  authority  was  best  quali- 
fied to  fix  suitable  times  and  places,  and  to  take  precautions 
against  disorder,  structural  dangers,  and  infection.  The 
plan  would  work  well  enough,  so  long  as  the  authority  was 
reasonable,  and  did  not,  as  is  sometimes  the  temptation 
of  licensing  authorities,  try  to  convert  a  power  of  regula- 
tion into  a  power  of  suppression.    Whether  mayors  and 
justices  were  equally  well  qualified  to  act  as  censors  of 
the  subject-matter  of  plays  may  be  doubted;  and  even  if 
qualified,  they  might  not  always  see  eye  to  eye  with  the 
central  government.  In  any  case  the  City  of  London  had 
not,  from  the  point  of  view  of  Elizabeth's  government, 
proved  altogether  reasonable.  The  Queen  required  plays 
for  her  Christmas  'solace'  at  court;  and,  in  order  that  these 
might  be  economically  provided,  it  was  desirable  that  the 
players  should  have  an  opportunity  of  making  their  living 
through  public  performances.  The  Corporation  was  com- 
posed of  heads  of  households  and  employers  of  labour, 
who  found  that  plays  distracted  their  servants  and  ap- 
prentices from  business  and  occasionally  led  to  disorder. 
Moreover  they  were  not  uninfluenced  by  a  growing 
puritan  sentiment,  which  was  hostile  to  plays  in  the  ab- 
stract as  contrary  to  the  word  of  God,  and  found  them  in 
the  concrete,  even  if  they  did  not  touch  upon  religion  and 
state,  full  of  ribaldry  and  wantonness.    There  had  been 
friction  for  some  years  before  1583.  The  Privy  Council 
had  made  more  than  one  attempt  to  persuade  the  City  to 
delegate  the  licensing -to  independent  persons,  no  doubt 
such  as  would  be  acceptable  to  the  Privy  Council  itself. 
This  had  been  refused,  and  a  hint  of  the  royal  prerogative 
had  been  given  in  a  patent  to  the  Earl  of  Leicester's  men 
in  1 574,  which  gave  them  authority  to  perform,  in  London 
and  elsewhere,  such  plays  as  had  been  allowed  by  the 
Master  of  the  Revels.  The  City  responded  in  the  same 
year  with  a  complete  code  of  play-regulations  for  their 
area.  These  need  not  have  been  oppressive,  if  not  applied 
oppressively.    But  the  players  probably  had  their  mis- 
givings; and  they  contributed  perhaps  more  than  the 
Privy  Council  itself  to  the  defeat  of  the  City,  by  setting  up 


30  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  Chap.  II 

theatres  just  outside  its  boundaries,  where  they  came  under 
the  control  of  county  justices,  less  active  and  interfering 
than  the  mayor  and  his  brethren.  It  was  not  a  complete 
remedy.  In  summer  the  apprentices  flocked  to  the  plays 
even  farther  from  their  masters'  doors,  but  in  winter  the 
comparative  inaccessibility  of  the  new  houses  made  re- 
course to  the  City  inn-yards  still  inevitable.  Meanwhile 
the  puritan  sentiment  gprew,  and  a  spate  of  controversial 
sermons  and  treatises  lifted  the  City  into  an  attitude  of 
complete  opposition  to  the  stage.  Short  epidemics  of 
plague,  during  which  the  Privy  Council  and  the  City  were 
agreed  that  plays  must  be  inhibited,  brought  a  complica- 
tion. It  proved  easier  to  get  restraints  established  than  to 
get  them  withdrawn  when  the  plague  was  over.  In  158 1 
the  patience  of  the  Privy  Council  was  exhausted,  and  the 
precedent  of  1574  was  followed  and  extended  in  a  new 
commission  to  the  Master  of  the  Revels,  giving  him  a 
general  power  over  the  whole  country,  not  merely  to 
license  individual  plays,  but  to  'order  and  reforme, 
auctorise  and  put  down*  all  plays,  players,  and  playmakers 
'together  with  their  i  " 


ana  ma) 
ancient 

necessary,  be  overruled.  No  doubt  the  Master  of  the 
Revels,  while  carrying  out  the  wishes  of  the  Privy  Council 
as  to  a  general  toleration  for  the  players  and  as  to  censor- 
ship, would  still  normally  leave  details  of  times  and  places 
to  local  control.  Perhaps,  in  exasperation,  the  City  now 
committed  a  tactical  blunder.  An  order  was  sent  to  the 
gilds,  requiring  all  freemen  to  forbid  the  attendance  of 
their  'sarvants,  apprentices,  journemen,  or  children*  at 
plays,  whether  within  or  without  London.  It  was  a  brutum 
fulmen,  which  could  not  possibly  be  made  effective,  par- 
ticularly beyond  the  liberties.  But  the  City  would  not 
accept  defeat,  and  it  was  probably  during  1582  that,  in 
defiance  of  the  Master  of  the  Revels  and  his  commission, 
an  ordinance  was  passed,  replacing  the  regulations  of 
1574  by  a  simple  prohibition  of  plays  within  the  area. 
The  establishment  of  a  company  with  the  status  and  dig- 


Chap.  II  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  31 

nity  of  royal  servants  may  reasonably  be  regarded  as  a 
counter-move  on  the  side  of  the  government.  The  City 
was  overawed  to  the  extent  of  appointing  two  inn-yards 
for  the  Queen's  men  in  the  winter  of  1583.  In  the  follow- 
ing year  they  again  proved  recalcitrant.  The  players 
brought  their  case  before  the  Privy  Council,  and  there  was 
an  elaborate  exchange  of  arguments  and  proposals,  as  to 
which  no  formal  decision  is  upon  record.  But  it  is  clear 
from  events  that  the  City  were  defeated.  They  had  obtained 
a  small  concession  in  a  standing  prohibition  of  plays  on 
Sundays.  But  on  the  main  issue  they  had  to  submit  to  the 
power  of  the  royal  prerogative,  and  to  content  themselves 
with  showing  cause  for  restraints  of  plays  as  often  as  pos- 
sible, and  pressing  for  the  extension  of  such  restraints  to 
the  Middlesex  and  Surrey  suburbs. 

The  Queen's  men  remained  the  dominant  London  com- 
pany for  several  years  after  1583.  They  did  regular 
service  at  court  during  each  Christmas  season,  according 
to  an  old  routine,  in  plays  carefully  chosen  by  the  Revels 
officers  and  rehearsed  before  the  Master.  Seventeen  plays 
are  credited  to  them  for  the  five  winters  from  1583-4  to 
1587-8.  It  may  have  been  a  subsidiary  object  of  their 
formation  to  reduce  the  number  of  companies  which  the 
City  was  called  upon  to  tolerate.  If  so,  it  was  partly 
counteracted  by  the  fact  that  the  Queen's  men  proved 
strong  enough  to  occupy  more  than  one  playhouse.  There 
was  a  protest  against  this  in  the  negotiations  of  1584,  and 
it  may  explain  an  arrangement  by  which  the  Curtain  was 
taken  for  a  term  of  seven  years  from  Michaelmas  1585 
as  an  'easer'  to  the  Theatre.1  But  the  relations  between 
companies  and  playhouses  during  this  period  are  very 
obscure.  James  Burbadge,  the  owner  of  the  Theatre,  who 
had  been  a  member  of  Leicester's  company,  was  not 
chosen  for  the  Queen's,  and  seems  to  have  entered  the 
service  of  Lord  Hunsdon.  Certainly,  however,  the 
Queen's  made  some  use  of  the  Theatre,  and  some  use  of 
various  inn-yards  during  the  winter.  And  in  the  hot  days 
of  summer  a  section  of  them,  or  perhaps  the  whole  com- 

1  Nebraska  Univ.  Studies,  xiii.  125. 


32  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  Chap.  II 

pany  if  plague  was  sporadic,  travelled  the  provinces,  where 
their  livery  generally  secured  them  exceptionally  liberal 
rewards.  The  older  companies,  robbed  of  their  best  men, 
became  insignificant.  Derby's  disappear  from  the  records; 
Leicester's,  Sussex's,  Oxford's,  and  Hunsdon's  survived  in 
the  provinces.  There  were  occasional  visits  to  London. 
One  play  was  given  at  court  by  Leicester's,  one  by  a  new 
company  under  the  Lord  Admiral,  Lord  Howard  of 
Effingham,  and  one  by  the  same  men  in  combination  with 
those  of  Hunsdon,  who  had  become  Lord  Chamberlain  in 
1585.  There  were  also  several  performances  of  Activities', 
vaulting  and  tumbling,  led  by  one  John  Symons,  whose 
patron  seems  to  have  been  generally  Lord  Strange,  but  in 
one  year  the  Earl  of  Oxford.  The  chief  rivals  of  the 
Queen's  men  at  court  were,  however,  the  boy  players. 
They  were  to  some  extent  a  survival.  In  the  earlier  Tudor 
dramatic  annals  the  great  choirs  of  St.  Paul's  and  the 
Chapel  Royal  had  been  at  least  as  conspicuous  as  the 
professional  companies.  In  1576  a  playhouse  had  been 
constructed  in  an  old  building  of  the  Dominican  priory  at 
Blackfriars,  and  this  seems  to  have  been  occupied  about 
1 583  by  boys  drawn  from  both  these  choirs,  together  with 
others  from  the  private  chapel  of  the  Earl  of  Oxford.  The 
boys  followed  the  classic  and  literary  tradition  which 
humanism  had  brought  into  the  drama,  and  their  Masters 
employed  academic  scholars,  such  as  George  Peele  and 
John  Lyly.  No  doubt  this  served  them  better  at  court, 
than  with  the  general  London  public.  Lyly  seems  to  have 
been  the  moving  spirit  of  the  Blackfriars  combination,  and 
soon  after  it  broke  down  in  1585,  he  began  a  new  series 
of  plays  for  Paul's.  The  Queen's  men,  on  the  other  hand, 
probably  contented  themselves  with  pieces  of  more  old- 
fashioned  and  popular  types.  To  this  period  may  belong 
the  early  chronicle  histories  of  The  Famous  Victories  of 
Henry  the  Fifth  and  The  True  Tragedy  of  Richard  the  Third. 
The  titles  of  the  lost  Phillyda  and  Choryn  and  Felix  and 
Phitiomena  carry  more  suggestion  of  literary  influence. 
But  evidently  the  Queen's  relied  largely  on  the  pens  of 
their  own  .members.  One  of  these  was  Robert  Wilson. 


Chap.  II  THE  STAGE  IN  1-592  33 

He  is  described  in  1581  as  capable  of  writing  a  'librum 
aliquem  brevem,  novum,  iucundum,  venustum,  lepidum, 
hilarem,  scurrosum,  nebulosum,  rabulosum,  et  omni- 
modis  carnificiis,  latrociniis  et  lenociniis  refertum*.  His 
extant  plays  are  of  the  nature  of  'moralities'.  Another  was 
Richard  Tarlton,  of  part  of  whose  Seven  Deadly  Sins  a 
*plot'  or  tiring-house  outline  is  preserved.  It  shows  an 
attempt  at  utilizing  classical  themes.  But  Tarlton's  con- 
siderable reputation  was  evidently  in  the  main  that  of  a 
joyous  jester  and  buffoon. 

The  death  of  Tarlton  in  September  1588  probably 
shattered  the  fortunes  of  the  Queen's  men;  and  with  it 
begins  a  very  difficult  phase  of  company  history.  Matters 
were  complicated  through  the  controversy  aroused  in  1 589 
by  the  anti-ecclesiastical  tracts  published  under  the  name 
of  Martin  Marprelate,  In  this  both  the  Queen's  men  and 
the  Paul's  boys  took  part,  possibly  at  the  instigation  of 
Richard  Bancroft,  afterwards  Bishop  of  London.   If  so, 
Bancroft's  action  was  officially  disapproved,  and  the  players 
suffered.    The  Paul's  company  was  suppressed.    The 
Queen's  was  not,  but  was  probably  required  to  leave 
London  for  a  time.  'Vetus  Comedia  hath  been  long  in  the 
country',  says  a  pamphlet  of  October  20.  It  will  be  as  well 
to  track  the  Queen's  men  to  their  end.  Wilson  had  ap- 
parently left  the  company  before  Tarlton's  death,  and 
among  its  leaders  were  now  John  Laneham  and  John 
Dutton,  two  of  the  original  members,  and  John  Button's 
brother  Laurence.   Moreover,  John  Symons  had  entered 
the  Queen's  service,  possibly  bringing  with  him  some  or 
all  of  Strange's  troop  of  acrobats.  This  had  presumably 
taken  place  before  14  August  1588,  when  *the  Quenes 
plaiers'  and  'the  Quenes  men  that  were  tumblers'  were 
rewarded  together  at  Bath.1  How  far  Symons  maintained 
an  organization  independent  of  the  older  company  it  is 
impossible  to  say,  in  view  of  the  habit  of  dividing  forces, 
which  evidently  still  continued.  The  travels  of  1 58  8  were 
prolonged  until  the  end  of  the  year,  and  extended  as  far 

x  Wardle  in,  from  Account  from  dale  of  August  xvij.s,  more  given  by 
c.  Whitsun  1588  to  c.  Whitsun  1589,  M*  Mayour  to  the  Quenes  men  that 
'given  to  the  Quenes  plaiers  the  xiiij"1  were  tumblers  z.s*. 

3142*1  D 


34  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  Chap.  II 

north  as  Lancashire,  where  Queen's  men  were  at  the  Earl 
of  Derby's  house  of  New  Park  on  October  16.  The  next 
day  came  4Mr  Button*.  He  was  probably  John  Button 
of  Button  in  Cheshire,  but  the  actor  Buttons  may  have 
been  kinsmen  of  that  house.  On  November  6  Queen's 
men  were  at  Leicester,  on  Becember  10  at  Norwich,  on 
Becember  17  at  Ipswich,  evidently  returning  London- 
wards.  There  were  Queen's  plays  at  court  on  26  Becem- 
ber 1588  and  9  February  1589,  and  an  entry  in  the  Revels 
Accounts  of  a  pair  of  hose  for  'Symmons  the  Tumbler' 
suggests  that  he  contributed  'activities'.1  The  travels  of 
1589  were  long  and  widespread;  the  Marprelate  episode 
was  no  doubt  a  factor.  The  movements  of  more  than  one 
group  seem  to  be  involved.  A  tour  started  at  Maidstone 
in  January,  and  went  by  a  southern  circuit  through  Canter- 
bury (c.  Feb.  2),  Bover,  Winchester  (Mar.  10),  Glouces- 
ter (Apr.  17),  Leicester  (May  20).  Here  the  reward  was 
to  'others  moe  of  her  Mayestyes  playars',  distinct  therefore 
from  the  'certen  of  her  Maiests  playars'  whose  reward 
for  6  November  1588  appears  in  the  same  account.  It 
may  have  been  this  or  another  group  who  are  found 
moving  northwards  on  an  eastern  circuit,  at  Ipswich 
(May  22),  Aldeburgh  (May  30),  and  Norwich  (June  3). 
And  either  from  Leicester  or  from  Norwich  Queen's  men 
made  their  way  into  the  north.  They  were  at  Lathom  in 
Lancashire,  another  of  Lord  Berby's  houses,  on  July  12 
and  13.  Then  track  is  rather  lost  of  them.  But  they  are 
more  likely  to  have  stayed  in  the  north  than  to  have 
returned  to  London,  since  Queen's  men  were  again  visit- 
ing Lord  Berby,  this  time  at  Knowsley  in  Lancashire,  on 
September  n  to  13,  and  on  September  22  Lord  Scrope 
wrote  to  the  English  ambassador  in  Scotland  that  they  had 
been  for  ten  days  in  Carlisle.  He  had  sought  them  out 
from  'the  furthest  parte  of  Langkeshire',  on  hearing  that 
King  James  wished  them  to  visit  Scotland,  and  they  had 

1  I  abandon  the  conjecture  (Elix.  the  Queen's,  but  it  does  not  follow  that 

Stage,  ii.  119)  that  Simons  was  tern-  the  Queen's  gave  none,  and  they  already 

porarily  with  the  Admiral's.  It  is  true  had  tumblers  at  Bath  (cf.  supra}  on 

that  the  Chamber  Account  ascribes  14  August  1588. 
(App.D)  'activities'  to  them  and  not  to 


Chap.  II  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  35 

returned  to  Carlisle,  where  they  had  evidently  already 
been.  Perhaps  they  never  visited  Scotland,  as  a  projected 
royal  wedding  was  deferred.  These  dates  show  that  it  must 
have  been  a  second  or  third  group  who  started  an  autumn 
tour,  again  on  the  southern  circuit,  through  Maidstone 
(Aug.  2),  Canterbury,  Dover,  Winchester  (September),  and 
Bath  (November).  Less  precisely  dated  visits  to  Coventry, 
Oxford,  and  Reading  may  belong  to  either  of  these  tours, 
or  even  to  the  winter  of  1588,  but  the  Nottingham  ac- 
counts for  1588—9  clinch  the  argument  for  the  duplication 
of  companies,  by  recording  separate  payments  to  'Symons 
and  his  companie  beinge  the  Quenes  players'  and  to  'the 
Quenes  players,  the  two  Buttons  and  others'.  By  the 
Christmas  of  1589  the  Queen's  must  have  purged  their 
summer's  offence,  since  they  played  at  court,  under  John 
Dutton  and  Laneham,  on  December  26  and  March  i. 
There  is  no  mention  of  Symons,  or  of  'activities'  by  the 
Queen's.  The  provincial  visits  of  1 5  90  are  mainly  undated. 
We  may  conjecture  a  summer  tour,  by  Ipswich  to  Norwich 
(Apr.  22),  then  perhaps  by  Leicester  and  Nottingham  to 
Knowsley  (June  25-6)  where  'Mr  Dutton'  was  again  a 
visitor,  thence  through  Shrewsbury  (July  24),  Bridgnorth 
and  Ludlow  (July),  and  home  by  Coventry  and  Oxford. 
An  autumn  tour  may  have  included  Faversham,  Can- 
terbury (Aug.  10),  Winchester,  Marlborough,  Exeter, 
Gloucester,  and  Leicester  (Oct.  30).  And  that  Symons  was 
a  participant  in  the  summer  tour  may  perhaps  be  inferred 
from  the  numerous  records  of  'activities'.  At  Ipswich  the 
reward  was  for  'the  Torkey  Tumblers',  at  Norwich  for 
'the  Quenes  men,  when  the  Turke  wente  vpon  Roppes  at 
Newhall',  at  Leicester  for  'certen  playars,  playinge  uppon 
ropes  at  the  Crosse  Keyes',  at  Bridgnorth  for  'the  Quenes 
players  at  the  dancing  on  the  rop',  at  Coventry  for  'the 
Queenes  players  and  the  Turk'.  From  Shrewsbury  we  have 
a  fuller  account  of  the  rope-dancing  by  'the  Queen's 
Majesty's  players  and  tumblers',  and  here  the  Turk  be- 
comes an  'Hongarian'.1  The  Christmas  of  1590  seems  to 

1  Owen   and   Blakeway,   Hist,   of    in  I  Shropshire  Arch.  Soc.  Trans,  iii. 
Shrewsbury,  i.  385;  W,  A.  Leighton      318,  from  Taylor  MS. 

D  2 


36  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  Chap.  II 

give  new  evidence  of  division.    Two  separate  warrants 
were  issued  on  7  March  1591;  one  to  the  Buttons  for 


four  plays  from  December  26  to  February  14;  the  other 
to  Laneham  for  a  single  play  on  January  i.1  And  on  the 
day  after  Laneham's  performance  a  group  of  Queers  men 
was  already  starting  at  Maidstone  for  the  southern  circuit. 
It  can  be  tracked  through  Faversham,  Canterbury  (Jan. 
n),  Dover,  Southampton  (Feb.  14),  Winchester,  Bath, 
Gloucester,  perhaps  Shrewsbury,  Coventry  (Mar.  24),  and 
Oxford.  And  at  Southampton,  Gloucester,  and  Coventry, 
probably  already  at  Faversham,  it  was  working  in  com- 
bination with  the  Earl  of  Sussex's  men.2  By  May  it  had 
crossed  to  the  eastern  counties,  and  here  it  was  possibly 
reinforced  by  a  second  group,  for  at  Ipswich  rewards  were 
paid  to  'the  Quenes  players'  on  May  15  and  to  'another 
company  of  the  Quenes  players'  on  May  28.  The  two 
groups  may  have  gone  on  together  to  Norwich  (June  23), 
where  they  pass  out  of  sight.  Meanwhile,  as  in  1590,  a 
fresh  tour  set  out  on  the  familiar  round  by  Maidstone 
(May  28),  Faversham  (June  2),  Southampton  (June  29), 
Winchester,  and  Bath.  At  Southampton  *Mr  Button'  is 
noted  as  the  leader.  Then  the  records  fail,  but  Queen's 
men  visited  the  Earl  of  Rutland  at  Winkburn  in  Notts  on 
August  1  8,  and  were  at  Coventry  both  on  August  24  and 
October  20,  coming  and  going,  maybe,  from  the  marches  or 
the  north.  The  Shrewsbury  visit  may  belong  here.  They 
were  only  called  upon  for  one  court  play,  on  26  December 
1591,  but  they  are  not  traceable  on  the  road  again  until 
March  30  at  Canterbury.  An  allusion  in  Nashe's  Sum- 
mer's  Last  Will  and  Testament  suggests  that  at  some  time 
in  1592  a  Queen's  'vice'  was  to  be  seen  at  the  Theatre. 
Several  tours  are  again  probable  during  this  year,  but  one 
can  only  definitely  link  dates  for  Ipswich  (May  i),  Nor- 
wich (May  27),  and  Leicester  (June  10);  then  Southamp- 
ton (Aug.  3)  and  Bath  (Aug.  22);  then  Cambridge  (c. 
Sept.  i)  and  AldeburgH  (Oct.  1  1),  where  the  Queen's  were 
rewarded  'at  the  same  time'  with  Lord  Morley's  men;  and 

1  Efa.  Stage,  iv,  163. 

*  The  Faversham  entry  says  Essex's,  but  I  suspect  an  error. 


Chap.  II  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  37 

finally  Canterbury  (Nov.  17)  and  Southampton  (Nov.  26). 
But  they  were  also  at  some  time  during  1591-2  at  Maid- 
stone,  Rochester,  Winchester,  Gloucester,  Stratford-on- 
Avon,  Coventry,  Worcester,  Nottingham,  and  again  at 
Aldeburgh.  At  Cambridge  they  got  into  trouble  with  the 
University  authorities,  who  feared  infection  from  the 
plague  then  raging  in  London,  and  'one  Dutton*  is  again 
mentioned  as  their  leader.1  A  letter  from  the  Vice-Cham- 
berlain in  December  indicates  that  they  would  be  pre- 
vented by  the  plague  from,  playing  at  court,  and  in  fact 
they  did  not  play,  although  other  companies  did.2  Their 
provincial  records  for  1593  are  comparatively  few;  the 
plague  had  made  visitors  from  London  unwelcome  in  the 
country.  A  tour  seems  to  have  started  in  a  new  direction 
by  Oxford  (Feb.  25).  Queen's  men  were  at  Leicester 
(June  20),  York  (September),  and  Norwich  (Oct.  1 8),  and 
at  some  time  in  1592—3  at  Ipswich,  Maidstone,  Ply- 
mouth, Coventry,  and  Stratford-on-Avon.*  They  made 
their  last  appearance  at  court  on  6  January  1594,  and  an 
attempt  to  maintain  a  footing  in  London  is  indicated  by 
a  season  which  they  began,  with  their  old  associates  of 
1591,  the  Earl  of  Sussex's  men,  at  the  Rose  or  perhaps 
Newington  Butts  on  April  i.  It  only  lasted  eight  days. 
Henslowe's  diary  records  a  reconstruction  on  May  8, 
'when  they  broke  and  went  into  the  contrey  to  playe'  ;4  and 
for  the  rest  of  the  reign  they  are  merely  a  provincial  com- 
pany. No  more  is  heard  of  the  Buttons,  or  of  Laneham.5 
How  long  the  relations  of  Symons  with  the  Queen's,  what- 
ever they  were,  lasted  is  uncertain.  But  there  were  still 
'tumblers  that  went  on  the  Ropes'  at  Coventry  in  1592-3, 
and  'a  wagon  in  the  pageant  for  the  Turke*  at  Gloucester 
in  1594-5.  These  notices  do  not  specifically  name  the 
Queen's. 

There  is,  of  course,  a  strong  element  of  conjecture  in 
all  this  mapping  of  travels,  and  the  disclosure  of  new 

1  M.S.C.  i.  190.  belongs  to  August  1594. 

2  M.S.C.  L  198.  4  Henslowe  ii.  277. 

3  A  Southampton  visit  ascribed  by  5  A  forged  reference  to  him  is  in  the 
Murray,  ii.  399,  to  August  1593  really  MS.  of  Sir  Ttomas  More  (cf.  p.  512). 


38  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  Chap.  II 

records  may  easily  supplement  or  modify  its  details.  But 
I  think  it  is  clear  that,  from  the  death  of  Tarlton  onwards, 
the  Queen's  men  were  gradually  losing  their  hold  of 
London.  Their  court  performances  only  number  eleven 
for  1588-94  against  the  seventeen  for  1583—8.  In  the 
country  their  livery  served  them  better.  But  they  had  to 
split  their  forces,  to  join  up  with  stray  companions  of  the 
road,  and  to  diversify  their  entertainments  with  acrobatic 
tricks.  They  were  reverting  to  the  hand-to-mouth  exis- 
tence of  the  medieval  minstrels.  It  is  perhaps  signifi- 
cant that  in  1592  the  City  took  advantage  of  the  situation 
to  suggest  that  public  plays  were  no  longer  necessary,  and 
that  the  Queen's  service  might  be  adequately  provided 
for  by  'the  privat  exercise  of  hir  Maiesties  own  players  in 
convenient  place'.  They  approached  Archbishop  Whit- 
gift,  and  the  cynical  ecclesiastic  advised  them  to  bribe  the 
Master  of  the  Revels.  But  the  money  was  not  forth- 
coming, and  other  players  took  the  place  of  the  Queen's. 
The  disorganization  of  the  hitherto  dominant  company 
was,  indeed,  an  obvious  opportunity  for  new  men.  Two 
companies  come  to  the  front.  One  is  the  Lord  Admiral's; 
the  other  Lord  Strange's.  The  Lord  Admiral's  have  the 
clearer  origin.  In  1583  a  provincial  company  of  the  Earl 
of  Worcester's  men  included  Robert  Browne,  James  Tun- 
stall,  Edward  Alleyn,  Richard  Jones,  and  Edward  Browne. 
The  last  notice  of  Worcester's  men  is  in  March  1585,  the 
first  of  the  Admiral's  in  June  1585;  and  the  connexions  in 
which  some  of  these  names  recur  later  make  it  a  safe  con- 
jecture that,  when  Lord  Howard  became  Lord  Admiral 
in  1585,  some  or  all  of  Worcester's  men  entered  his 
service.  The  Admiral's  played  at  court,  both  indepen- 
dently and  in  conjunction  with  Lord  Hunsdon's,  in  the 
winter  of  1585-6.  They  travelled  in  158  6,  were  in  London 
by  January  1587,  but  not  at  court,  travelled  again  in  1 58 7, 
and  returned  to  London  by  November.  About  Novem- 
ber 1 6  they  were  unfortunate  enough  to  kill  a  woman  and  a 
child  during  a  shooting  scene,  which  must  have  been  the 
execution  of  the  Governor  of  Babylon  in  2  Tamburlaine^ 
v.  i.  They  now  disappear  from  the  provincial  records 


Chap.  II  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  39 

until  1588-9,  when  a  visit  to  Cambridge  is  recorded. 
Possibly  they  found  retirement  discreet;  possibly  they 
merely  gave  up  travelling.  They  were  at  court  on  29 
December  1588  and  n  February  1589  with  plays,  and 
also  with  'feates  of  activity  and  tumblinge'..  Symons  had 
no  monopoly  of  these.  About  this  time  there  was  probably 
some  reconstruction  of  the  company,  for  on  3  January 
1589  Edward  Alleyn  purchased  from  Richard  Jones  his 
share  of  a  stock  of  play-books  and  apparel  which  the  two 
had  held  jointly  with  John  Alleyn  and  Robert  Browne. 
John  Alleyn  was  a  brother  of  Edward.  He  is  described  as 
'servant*  to  the  Admiral  in  1589.  Other  purchases  of 
theatrical  apparel  by  the  Alleyns  took  place  between  1589 
and  1591,  and  to  two  of  these  James  Tunstall  was  a  wit- 
ness. It  is  possible  that  Robert  Browne  was  also  bought 
out,  since  he  was  at  Leyden  in  October  1590,  and  was 
accompanied  by  Jones  on  a  second  foreign  expedition  in 
February  1592.  Conceivably  their  companions,  John 
Bradstreet  and  Thomas  Sackville,  may  also  have  been 
Admiral's  men,  but  there  is  no  proof  of  it. 

The  origin  of  Strange's  men  is  a  more  difficult  problem. 
It  is  natural,  at  first  sight,  to  regard  them  as  a  development 
from  their  lord's  earlier  players  of  Activities' ;  and  this, 
indeed,  they  may  to  some  extent  have  been.  Symons  did 
not  necessarily  take  the  whole  troop  with  him  when  he 
joined  the  Queen's.  A  reward  was  paid  to  Strange's  at 
Coventry  during  the  year  ending  on  All  Saints'  Day  1588, 
but  this  may  have  been  either  before  or  after  Symons's 
departure.  Something  is  known  of  the  pre-history  of  four 
men  who  were  ultimately  members  of  or  associated  with 
the  later  company.  John  Heminges  is  stated  in  his  grant 
of  arms  to  have  been  a  servant  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  pre- 
sumably as  an  actor.  He  is  not,  however,  in  a  list,  perhaps 
not  quite  complete,  of  30  June  1588.  William  Kempe  was 
almost  certainly  the  'Will,  my  Lord  of  Lester's  jesting 
plaier',  mentioned  in  a  letter  from  Utrecht  of  24  March 
1586.  A  performance  half  dramatic,  half  acrobatic,  of 
The  Forces  of  Hercules  was  given  before  Leicester  at 
Utrecht  on  April  23,  and  in  August  and  September 


40  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  Chap.  II 

'Wilhelm  Kempe,  instrumentist'  was  at  the  Danish 
court  of  HelsingSr.  Here  too  were  George  Bryan  and 
Thomas  Pope,  with  three  other  'instrumentister  och 
springere',  Thomas  Stevens,  Thomas  King,  and  Robert 
Percy,  of  whom  there  is  no  English  record.  A  sixth, 
Thomas  Bull,  killed  one  of  his  fellows  in  a  brawl,  and 
presumably  met  his  own  end  as  a  result.1  The  five,  but 
not  Kempe,  went  on  to  Dresden  and  were  there  until  1 7 
July  1587.  This  is  doubtless  the  'company  of  English 
comedians'  which  Heywood  says  that  Leicester  com- 
mended to  the  King  of  Denmark.2  Their  less  dramatic 
acquirements  were  naturally  prominent  abroad.  It  does 
not  of  course  follow  that  these  comedians,  except  perhaps 
Kempe,  had  anything  to  do  with  Leicester's  own  long- 
lived  English  company.  The  Earl  may  have  picked  them 
up  on  the  Continent  itself.  Thomas  Bull,  at  least,  had 
already  paid  a  visit  to  Denmark  in  1579-80.3  Moreover, 
Leicester's  men  were  playing  at  court  and  elsewhere  in 
England  during  the  period  of  the  continental  travels. 
TJiey  went  on  appearing  in  the  provinces  up  to  and  after 
the  Earl's  death  on  4  September  1 58  8,  and  if  a  Faversham 
record  of  1 58  9-90  can  be  trusted,  they  were  not  even  then 
disbanded.4  Possibly  they  continued  for  a  time  in  the  service 
of  the  Countess,  who  had  in  fact  similarly  retained  the  com- 
pany of  her  first  husband,  the  Earl  of  Essex,  for  some  years 
after  his  death.  There  is  not  therefore  much  support  for 
the  theory  that  Leicester's  men  passed  in  a  body  to  Strange, 
It  has  been  recently  revived  by  Professor  Baldwin,  who 
thinks  that  the  continental  travellers  of  1586-7  were  not 
Leicester's  players  but  his  musicians,  and  that  on  their 
return  they  amalgamated  with  his  players  under  the  pat- 
ronage of  Strange.  Leicester  no  doubt  had  musicians,  who 
were  at  Oxford  in  1 5  8  5-6,  possibly  before  he  went  abroad.* 

1  J.  L.  E.  Dreyer  in  T.LS.  for  Soc.  Trans,  i.  218)  extracted  the  entry 

21  January  1926,  citing  C.  Thranc,  (0.1869).  I  have  not  been  able  to  con- 

Fra  Hofuiolemes  Tid  (1908)5  V.  C.  suit  them. 

Ravn,  Engehker  Instrument r  (1870).  5  Boas,  St.  and  the  Universities,  19. 

*  Eltz.  Stage,  iv.  52.  3  Ibid.  ii.  272.  Baldwin,  76,  confuses  them  with  the 

4  The  accounts  were  in  a  bad  con-  players  and  musicians  of  Edward  Lord 

dition  when  J.  M.  Cowper  (j  R.  Hist.  Dudley,  who  were  at  Coventry  (Mur- 


Chap.  II  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  41 

I  do  not  think  that  the  evidence  allows  us  to  say  more  than 
that  as  early  as  10  June  1592  Kempe,  who  had  probably 
been  a  Leicester's  man,  had  joined  either  Strange's  or,  as 
will  be  seen,  the  Admiral's ; l  and  that,  at  some  time  before 
1590-1,  Bryan  and  Pope,  who  had  been  on  the  Continent, 
had  done  the  same.  There  are  too  many  possibilities  for 
confidence.  Hunsdon's,  who  disappear  after  1589—90, 
may  have  contributed  an  element,  as  well  as  the  Queen's 
and  Strange's  tumblers.  And  some  or  all  of  the  conti- 
nental company  may  have  taken  service  on  their  return 
with  Leicester's  brother,  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  or  may  even 
have  been  his  men  before  they  went  abroad.  Warwick's 
tumblers  were  at  Bath  in  1587-8,  just  about  the  time  of 
the  return,  and  Warwick's  players  at  Ipswich  in  1592. 
The  real  patron  must  then  have  been  the  Countess,  since 
Warwick  died  on  20  February  1590,  and  left  no  heir. 

Strange's  were  not  at  court  for  the  1588-9  season.  But 
on  the  following  November  5  both  they  and  the  Admiral's 
were  playing  in  the  City.  Perhaps  one  or  both  companies 
had  failed  to  take  warning  from  the  fate  of  the  Queen's 
and  to  keep  their  tongues  off  Martin  Marprelate,  for  the 
Lord  Mayor  made  an  attempt  to  suppress  plays,  on  the 
ground  that  Tilney  'did  utterly  mislike  the  same'.  The 
Admiral's  submitted,  but  Strange's  showed  contempt  and 
performed  at  the  Cross  Keys,  with  the  result  that  some  of 
them  found  themselves  in  prison,  'Admiral's'  are  named 
as  at  court  during  the  following  winter,  giving  a  play  on 
28  December  1589  and  'activities'  on  3  March  1590, 
'Strange's'  are  not,  nor  are  any  provincial  visits  ascribed  to 
them  during  1590.  'Admiral's',  however,  did  an  autumn 
tour,  perhaps  by  Ipswich,  Maidstone,  Winchester, 
Marlborough  (July  25),  Gloucester  (Sept.  17),  Coventry, 
and  Oxford.2  In  the  following  winter  there  were  plays  at 
James  Burbadge's  house,  the  Theatre,  and  here  events 
occurred  about  which  John  Alleyn  was  afterwards  called 

ray,  ii.  238)  in  1582-3.  There  is  of  six  men  in  1572  (Ettz.  Stage,  ii.  86). 

course  nothing  in  his  point  that  five  z  Jfewaaind  Knack  to  Know  a  Knave. 

men  were  at  Dresden  and  that  the  same  *  Possibly  some  of  these  visits  may 

'taUsmanic' number  are  in  the  patent  to  have  been  late  in  1589.   There  were 

Leicester's  men  of  1574.  Leicester  had  two  to  Ipswich. 


42  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  Chap.  II 

upon  to  give  evidence  in  a  Chancery  case.1  The  dispute 
was  between  Burbadge  and  one  Mrs.  Brayne,  who  claimed 
a  share  in  the  profits  of  the  house,  and  charged  Burbadge 
with  contempt  of  court  in  disregarding  an  order  which 
she  considered  to  be  in  her  favour.  She  paid  several  visits 
to  the  Theatre  to  demand  her  rights.  One  of  these  was 
in  November  1590,  and  a  deposition  by  John  Alleyn  on 
6  February  1592  suggests  that  it  was  on  this  occasion 
that  James  Burbadge  spoke  words  of  contempt,  and  his 
youngest  son  Richard  beat  one  of  Mrs.  Brayne's  supporters 
about  the  legs  with  a  broomstick.  Alleyn  claims  that  he  'did 
as  a  servaunt  wishe  the  said  James  Burbage  to  have  a 
conscience  in  the  matter'.  Burbadge,  however,  said  that 
*yf  ther  wer  xx  contempts  and  as  many  iniunccions  he 
wold  withstand  them  all'.  And  then  Alleyn  goes  on  to 
relate  that  'when  this  deponent  about  viij  daies  after  came 
to  him  for  certen  money  which  he  deteyned  from  this 
deponent  and  his  fellowes,  of  some  of  the  dyvydent  money 
betwene  him  &  them,  growinge  also  by  the  vse  of  the  said 
Theater,  he  denyed  to  pay  the  same.  He  this  deponent 
told  him  that  belike  he  ment  to  deale  with  them,  as  he  did 
with  the  poor  wydowe,  meaning  the  now  complainant, 
wishing  him  he  wold  not  do  so,  for  yf  he  did,  they  wold 
compleyne  to  ther  lorde  &  Mr  the  lord  Admyrall,  and 
then  he  in  a  rage,  litle  reuerencing  his  honour  &  estate, 
sayd  by  a  great  othe,  that  he  cared  not  for  iij  of  the  best 
lordes  of  them  all/  Alleyn  was,  however,  called  upon  to 
make  a  second  deposition  in  reply  to  interrogatories  on 
behalf  of  Burbadge,  in  which  he  was  pressed  as  to  the 
date  of  these  events,  and  on  6  May  1592  he  said  that  they 
took  place  'about  a  yere  past'.  The  words  about  the  Ad- 
miral were  spoken  in  the  'attyring  house'  in  the  presence 
of  James  Tunstall.  I  think  that  we  must  take  this  as 
Alleyn's  most  considered  dating,  and  treat  the  tenure  of 
the  Theatre  by  the  Admiral's  as  lasting  to  at  least  about 
May  1591.  The  court  records  for  the  winter  of  1590-1 
are  on  the  face  of  them  rather  odd.  The  Privy  Council 

'  Cf.  JSltx.  Stage,  ii.  389.  The  de-     Wallace     in     Nebraska     University 
positions  cited  are  printed  by  C.  W.      Studies,  xiii.  i. 


Chap.  II  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  43 

Register  notes  the  issue  of  a  warrant  for  plays  and  'ac- 
tivities' on  December  27  and  February  16  by  the  *  Ad- 
miral's';  the  Chamber  Accounts  show  payments  for  these 
days  to  'George  Ottewell  and  his  companye  the  Lord 
Straunge  his  players'.  It  is  difficult  to  resist  the  inference 
that  the  two  companies  whose  names  are  thus  treated  in 
official  documents  as  equivalent  had  in  fact  appeared  at 
court  together.  And  if  so  they  had  probably  been  'exer- 
cising' their  court  plays  together  in  public  performances, 
under  an  arrangement  with  James  Burbadge  which  put  the 
Theatre  at  their  disposal.  They  may  also  have  had  the 
Curtain,  since  the  lawsuit  already  cited  tells  us  that  it  still 
served  as  an  'easer'  for  the  Theatre.  But  the  relations  with 
Burbadge  indicated  by  John  Alleyn's  evidence  could 
hardly  fail  to  bring  any  such  arrangement  to  an  end.  Pro- 
vincial notices  suggest  an  autumn  tour  of  'Admiral's' 
men  in  1591,  closely  resembling  that  of  1590,  by  South- 
ampton, Winchester,  Bath,  Gloucester,  and  Oxford. 
'Strange's'  seem  also  to  have  been  at  Bath.  And  there  is 
some  reason  to  suppose  that  by  the  summer  of  1 59 1  a  new 
London  head-quarters  had  already  been  found  at  Philip 
Henslowe's  Rose  on  the  Bankside.  The  Alleyn  papers  at 
Dulwich  contain  an  order  by  the  Privy  Council  with- 
drawing a  previous  one  which  had  restrained  'Strange's' 
men  from  playing  there  and  had  enjoined  them  to  play- 
three  days  a  week  at  Newington  Butts.  With  it  are  peti- 
tions from  the  company  and  from  Henslowe  and  the 
Thames  watermen  asking  for  the  concession.  Unfor- 
tunately neither  order  is  recorded  in  the  Privy  Council 
Register,  and  the  documents  themselves  are  undated.  The 
players'  petition,  however,  was  written  'nowe  in  this  longe 
vacation'.  It  recites  that  'oure  companie  is  greate,  and 
thearbie  our  chardge  intollerable,  in  travellinge  the  coun- 
trie,  and  the  contynuance  thereof  wilbe  a  meane  to  bringe 
us  to  division  and  seperacion'.  Henslowe's  petition  begs 
that  he  may  have  leave  'to  have  playinge  in  his  saide  howse 
duringe  such  tyme  as  others  have'.  It  does  not  look, 
therefore,  as  if  there  had  been  any  general  inhibition  of 
plays.  This  seems  to  point  to  1591  rather  than  to  1592, 


44  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  Chap.  II 

the  only  other  possible  year.  In  1592  there  was  such  a 
general  inhibition  on  June  23,  and  it  was  to  last  to 
Michaelmas,  and  therefore  through  the  'longe  vacation'. 
If  I  am  right  in  supposing  that  'Strange's'  as  well  as  the 
'Admiral's'  had  broken  with  James  Burbadge  in  the 
spring  of  1591,  it  seems  necessary  to  refer  to  some  earlier 
date  two  tiring-house  'plots'  or  book-keeper's  outlines  of 
plays,  since  both  of  them  show  Richard  Burbadge  as  a 
performer,  and  he  is  not  likely  to  have  gone  with  the  com- 
panies when  they  left  his  father.1  One,  now  at  Dulwich, 
is  of  The  Second  Part  of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins.  It  gives 
an  almost  complete  cast,  which  includes,  as  players  of  male 
characters,  Mr,  Brian,  Mr.  Phillipps,  Mr.  Pope,  R.  Bur- 
badg,  R.  Cowley,  John  Duke,  Ro.  Pallant,  J.  Holland, 
John  Sincler,  Tho.  Goodale,  W.  Sly,  Harry,  Kitt,  and 
Vincent;  and  as  players  of  women,  T.  Belt,  Saunder,  Nick, 
R.  Go.,  Will,  and  Ned.  Two  speakers  and  some  others, 
probably  mute,  have  no  names  assigned;  the  speakers, 
who  are  presenters,  may  have  already  been  cast  in  a  plot 
for  the  first  part.  The  other  plot,  also  probably  once  at 
Dulwich,  is  of  The  Dead  Man's  Fortune.  Unluckily,  it  is 
not  completely  cast.  The  actors  named  are  Robert  Lee, 
Darlowe,  'b.  Samme',  and  Burbage,  who  possibly  played 
a  messenger,  but  more  probably  a  substantial  part.  To 
the  inferences  to  be  drawn  from  these  plots  I  shall  return. 
No  less  than  six  court  plays  are  credited  to  'Strange's' 
during  the  winter  of  1591-2,  on  December  27  and  28, 
January  I  and  9,  and  February  6  and  8  ;  none  to  the  'Ad- 
miral's'. The  Queen's  and  Sussex's  also  appeared,  once 
each,  and  a  little-known  company  of  the  Earl  of  Hertford's 
men.  On  February  1  9  Henslowe  begins  a  daily  record  for 
'Strange's'  which  lasts  to  June  23,  Then  came  the  inhibi- 
tion provoked  by  some  recent  disorders,  probably  arising 
from  an  agitation  (cf.  p.  511)  against  alien  artisans 
in  London;  and  before  its  termination  at  Michaelmas 
plague  had  broken  out.  'Strange's'  were  at  Canterbury  by 
r3>  aad  are  ako  traceable  at  Gloucester,  Coventry, 


1  Dr.  Greg  is  revising  the  texts  of  Henslowe  Papers,  127,  for  his  Dramatic 
Documents. 


Chap.  II  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  45 

Cambridge,  and  Oxford  (Oct.  6).  Notices  of  'Admiral's* 
men  during  this  year  are  scanty.  There  is  a  possible  one 
at  Aldeburgh  and  a  certain  one  at  Ipswich  on  August  7. 
But  here  the  Admiral's  were  not  alone.  The  payment  is 
apparently  a  joint  one  to  the  Earl  of  Derby's  and  to  the 
Lord  Admiral's  players.  By  Derby's  I  think  we  must  as- 
sume Strange's  to  be  here  meant.  The  Earl  does  not  seem 
to  have  had  a  company  after  1583.  Strange's  men  would 
naturally  have  worn  the  Stanley  badge,  and  a  mistake  is 
intelligible.1  Late  in  the  year,  on  December  19,  'Ad- 
miral's' men  were  at  Leicester.  The  plague,  however, 
lulled  a  little  about  Christmas,  and  plays  at  court  became 
possible.  Two  were  given  by  a  company  which  at  this 
juncture  makes  a  rather  surprising  first  appearance  in 
dramatic  annals,  that  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  and  three 
by  'Strange's'.  These  men  also  got  another  month's 
season  with  Henslowe.  But  fresh  plague  led  to  a  fresh 
inhibition  on  28  January  1593,  and  on  January  31  or 
February  i  the  season  ended.  'Admiral's'  men  were  al- 
ready on  the  road  as  far  afield  as  Shrewsbury  on  February 
3.  Apparently  they  were  weak  in  numbers,  for  at  York 
(April)  they  were  performing  with  a  company  described 
as  Lord  Morden's,  possibly  an  error  for  Lord  Morley's; 
at  Newcastle  (May)  certainly  with  Lord  Morley's;  at  Ips- 
wich with  Lord  Stafford's.  Their  name  appears  alone  at 
Norwich  and  Coventry.  'Strange's1  seem  to  have  remained 
idle  for  a  time,  perhaps  hoping  for  the  plague  to  subside. 
Edward  Alleyn  was  at  Chelmsford  with  companions  on 
May  2,  and  a  record  of  'Strange's'  at  Sudbury  in  1592-3 
may  perhaps  identify  them.  On  May  6  a  special  travelling 
warrant  was  issued  by  the  Privy  Council  in  favour  of 
'the  bearers  hereof,  Edward  Allen,  servaunt  to  the  right 
honorable  the  Lord  Highe  Admiral,  William  Kempe, 
Thomas  Pope,  John  Heminges,  Augustine  Phillipes  and 
Georg  Brian,  being  al  one  companie,  servauntes  to  our 
verie  good  Lord  the  Lord  Strainge'.  It  is  a  little  uncertain 

1  A  recusant  list  of  1592  (Bowden,     coat  with  the  eagle  and  child  on  his 
Religion  of  Shakespeare,  79)  includes  a     sleeve*. 
priest,  who  'uses  to  travel  in  a  blue 


46  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  Chap.  II 

whether  or  not  the  'being  al  one  companie'  is  meant 
to  cover  Alleyn;  in  any  case  he  was  maintaining  some 
personal  relation  to  the  Admiral,  For  a  tour  which  fol- 
lowed, and  in  which  Alleyn  took  part,  his  correspondence 
enables  us  to  eke  out  the  provincial  records;  and  to  learn 
that  members  of  the  company  not  named  in  the  warrant 
were  Richard  Cowley,  a  boy  of  Alleyn's  called  John  Pyk, 
and  a  'Mr  Douton',  who  is  less  likely  to  be  one  of  the 
Duttons,  than  Thomas  Downton,  who  was  later  an  Ad- 
miral's man.  The  route  was  by  Maidstone,  Southampton, 
Bath,  Bristol  (Aug.  i),  Shrewsbury,  Leicester,  and 
Coventry  (Dec.  2).  Alleyn,  writing  from  Bristol,  con- 
templated visits  to  Chester  and  York,  and  a  return  to 
London  about  All  Saints'  Day.  Possibly  the  prolonged 
plague  caused  a  change  of  purpose.  The  letters  show  that 
the  company  was  travelling  as  'Strange's'.  It  is  Derby's  at 
Leicester  and  Coventry,  but  on  September  25  Strange  had 
succeeded  to  the  earldom.  At  Shrewsbury  the  payment 
was  to  'my  1.  Stranges  and  my  1.  Admyralls  players'.  Prob- 
ably the  two  tours  crossed  here.  The  'Admiral's'  appear  to 
have  gone  on  to  Bath  and  to  have  found  fresh  associates  in 
Lord  Norris's  men.  Again  an  error  for  Morley's  is  possible. 
Two  other  companies  of  interest  to  us  were  also  on  the 
road  in  1593.  One  was  Sussex's,  who  like  'Strange's'  ob- 
tained on  April  29  a  special  travelling  warrant  from  the 
Privy  Council.  They  went  far  afield,  to  Sudbury,  Ipswich, 
York  (August),  Newcastle  (September),  and  Winchester 
(Dec.  7).  The  other  was  Pembroke's,  the  new  court  as- 
pirants of  the  preceding  Christmas.  They  made  for  their 
Lord's  quarters  in  the  Welsh  marches,  covering  Rye,  Bath, 
Ludlow,  Bewdley,  Shrewsbury,  York  (June),  Coventry, 
Leicester,  Ipswich.  At  Bath  the  careful  chamberlains 
record  a  receipt  of  two  shillings  for  a  bow  that 
Pembroke's  men  had  broken.  It  is  an  allegory,  for  soon 
Pembroke's  were  themselves  broken.  There  are  no  precise 
dates,  and  it  is  possible,  although  not  very  likely,  that  some 
of  the  visits  may  belong  to  the  end  of  1592.  But  that 
Pembroke's  were  in  the  provinces  during  1593  we  learn 
from  a  letter  of  September  28  in  that  year  from  Henslowe 


PLATE 


FERDINANDO  EARL  OF  DERBY 


Chap.  II  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  47 

to  Alleyn.  They  had  by  then,  he  says,  been  at  home  for 
five  or  six  weeks,  because  they  could  not  save  their  charges 
with  travel,  and  had  been  obliged  to  pawn  their  apparel. 
The  only  company  at  court  for  the  Christmas  of  1 593-4 
was  the  Queen's.  But  there  was  a  short  cessation  of  plague, 
and  Henslowe's  book  records  a  short  season  from  Decem- 
ber 26  to  February  6  by  Sussex's  men.    This  had  been 
purely  a  provincial  company  from  1585  up  to  its  appear- 
ance at  court  on  2  January  1 592.  But  we  found  it  working 
with  a  travelling  group  of  Queen's  men  in  1591,  and  after 
a  fresh  outbreak  of  plague  and  a  consequent  inhibition  on 
February  3,  this  relation  was  now  renewed  in  a  second 
short  season  with  Henslowe  from  I  to  9  April  1594. 
Meanwhile  'Derby's'  men  were  at  King's  Lynn,  Ipswich 
(May  8),  and  Southampton  (c.  May  15)  where  in  their 
turn  they  had  combined  with  Morley's.  The  Earl  had  in 
fact  died  in  the  north  on  April  1 6,  and  although  this  does 
not  appear  to  have  been  known  at  Southampton,  when  the 
company  reached  Winchester  on   May  16  they  were 
described  as  the  Countess  of  Derby's.   'Admiral's'  men 
were  with  Henslowe  from  May  14  to  1 6.  The  plague  was 
now  really  over,  and  a  reorganization  of  the  companies 
became  possible.  Already  on  May  10  and  again  on  June  i 
the  City  were  considering  some  'cause'  concerning  plays 
recommended  to  them  by  the  Countess  of  Warwick.1  It 
is  just  conceivable  that  she  had  contemplated  maintaining 
a  London  company.  If  so,  nothing^cameofit  On  June  5 
a  company  of  Chamberlain's  men  is  heard  of  for  the  first 
time  since  1588-9.  It  was  playing  with  Admiral's  men, 
probably  on  alternate  days,  for  Henslowe  at  Newington 
Butts.    The  arrangement  seems   only  to   have  lasted 
until  June  1 5.  The  companies  then  parted,  and  to  the  end 
of  the  reign  shared  the  supremacy  of  the  London  stage. 
On  October  8  Lord  Hunsdon  was  negotiating  with  the 
City  for  the  housing  of  'my  nowe  companie*  at  the  Cross 
Keys.2  Most  of  the  men  named  as  'Strange's'  on  6  May 

*  The  first  record  is  in  Elix.  Stage,    shortly  be  printed  in  M.S.C, 
iv.  3155  the  second  has  been  recently       *  EKx.  Stage,  iv.  316. 
found  by  Miss  A.  J.  Mill,  and  will 


48  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  Chap.  II 

1593,  William  Kempe,  Thomas  Pope,  John  Heminges, 
Augustine  Phillips,  and  George  Bryan,  became  Chamber- 
lain's men.  So  did  others  of  whom  we  have  heard,  Richard 
Burbadge,  Richard  Cowley,  John  Duke,  William  Sly,  John 
Sincler.  Edward  Alleyn,  on  the  other  hand,  continued  or 
resumed  his  service  with  Charles  Howard,  the  Lord 
Admiral,  and  with  him  went  Richard  Jones,  now  back  from 
the  Continent,  James  Tunstall,  and  Thomas  Downton. 
John  Alleyn  is  not  traceable  as  a  player  after  1591.  There 
is  some  slight  evidence  connecting  George  Ottewell  or 
Attewell  with  the  Queen's  in  1595. 

This  complicated  chronicle  raises  some  problems 
which  are  perhaps  beyond  solution.  What  was  the  precise 
nature  of  the  association  between  the  Admiral's  and 
Strange's  men,  and  what  period  did  it  cover?  My  im- 
pression is  that  the  court  documents  of  1590-1  enable  us 
to  put  its  beginning  not  later  than  1590,  and  that  from 
that  year  to  1594  it  amounted  to  an  amalgamation.  It 
may  have  begun  a  little  earlier,  with  the  expulsion  from 
the  City  in  November  1589.  It  is  of  course  only  for 
1590-1  that  the  identity  at  court  of  the  'Admiral's'  and 
'Strange's'  is  demonstrated,  but  the  reputation  of  Edward 
Alleyn  about  1592  renders  it  almost  incr'edible  that  he  was 
never  .called  upon  to  appear  before  the  Queen  between 
1590-1  and  1594-5;  and  if  he  did  so  appear,  it  can  only 
have  been  as  a  'Strange's'  man  in  1591-2  and  1592-3. 
In  these  years  'Strange's'  are  at  least  as  predominant  at^ 
court  as  the  Queen's  men  had  been  in  their  day.  In  1593* 
there  is  the  clearest  evidence  that  Alleyn,  although  retain- 
ing a  personal  status  as  a  servant  of  the  Admiral,  was 
travelling  as  a  'Strange's'  man.  I  take  it  that  the  Ad- 
miral's, weakened  by  the  loss  of  Jones  and  Browne,  and 
perhaps  later  of  John  Alleyn,  were  numerically  a  sub- 
ordinate element  in  the  amalgamation.  Possibly  only 
Edward  Alleyn  and  James  Tunstall  were  left  of  the  nucleus 
which  came  from  Lord  Worcester's  service.  Obviously 
the  personal  gifts,  histrionic  and  financial,  of  Edward 
made  him  the  effective  manager  of  the  company.  I  think 
it  best  to  call  it  'the  Alleyn  company'.  Officially,  in  Lon- 


PLATE   V 


EDWARD  ALLEYN 


Chap.  II  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  49 

don  at  least,  it  seems  to  have  been  known  as  'StrangeY. 
The  provinces  are  another  matter.  The  records  of  1590 
and  also,  but  for  an  isolated  visit  of  'StrangeY  to  Bath, 
those  of  1 59 1  are  for  the  'Admiral's'.  Both  names  are  used 
in  1592  and  1593,  and  during  these  years  probably  two 
groups  were  travelling.  There  are  distant  records  for  'Ad- 
miral's' at  dates  when  'Strange's'  cannot  have  been  far 
from  London,  Sometimes  the  paths  of  the  tours  intersect, 
and  the  groups  play  together.  This  is  not  in  itself  proof 
of  corporate  unity,  since  both  groups  also  play  on  occasion 
with  outside  companies,  such  as  Morley's.  I  interpret  the 
facts  as  follows.  At  the  beginning  of  the  amalgamation, 
the  best  of  the  old  Admiral's  and  Strange's  men  remained 
continuously  in  London.  But  at  certain  seasons  a  group, 
perhaps  largely  composed  of  hired  men,  was  sent  on  tour. 
One  may  guess  at  either  James  Tunstall  or  George  Otte- 
well  as  the  leader.  The  arrangement  is  closely  analogous 
to  that  of  the  Queen's  men  during  the  same  period. 
Probably  Queen's  men  could  always  pass  in  the  provinces 
as  Queen's  men.  I  do  not  know  what  evidence  of  identity 
travelling  royal  servants  had  to  carry  with  them.  Noble- 
men's players  certainly  required  a  warrant  from  their  lord. 
Probably  the  amalgamated  company  still  held  the  Ad- 
miral's warrant,  as  well  as  Lord  Strange's,  and  could  use 
this  for  a  travelling  group.  The  London  group,  at  the 
time  of  the  petition  of  1591  or  1592,  were  a  'greate'  com- 
pany, and  feared  'division  and  separation'  if  they  travelled. 
They  had  the  example  of  the  decaying  Queen's  men  before 
them.  But  plague  drove  them  to  form  a  second  travelling 
group,  and  I  think  it  also  drove  them  to  still  further 
'division  and  separation'.  The  sudden  appearance  in  a 
time  of  plague  of  Pembroke's  men,  only  to  be  extinguished 
after  a  brief  career,  is  perhaps  best  to  be  explained  as  a 
budding  off  from  the  great  amalgamation.  A  third  travel- 
ling warrant  was  thus  secured.  Again,  either  Ottewell 
or  Tunstall,  neither  of  whom  is  named  in  the  travelling 
warrant  for  'StrangeY,  may  have  taken  charge.  Probably 
some  play-books,  formerly  in  use  by  the  Alleyn  company, 
were  handed  over  as  an  outfit  for  the  new  venture,  and  in- 


3X42.1 


50  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  Chap.  II 

eluded  Titus  Andronicus>  not  necessarily  in  the  extant  ver- 
sion, and  2,  3  Henry  71.  The  stage-directions  to  the  latter 
preserve  the  names  of  five  actors,  Gabriel,  Humfrey, 
Sinklo,  John  Holland,  and  Bevis.  The  first  two  names, 
not  very  usual,  may  point  to  Gabriel  Spencer  and  Humfrey 
JefFes,  of  whom  we  have  later  record.  All  five  may  have 
been  written  into  the  books  either  before  or  after  the 
transfer  to  Pembroke's,  and  the  only  one  who  can  be 
shown  to  have  gone  with  that  company  is  Bevis,  who  is 
traceable  in  a  gag  found  only  in  the  reported  version  of 
2  Henry  VI  as  given  by  them.1  Holland  and  Sincler 
are  in  the  'plot'  of  Seven  Deadly  Sins  already  described.  It 
is  even  conceivable  that  the  names  may  have  been  added 
by  the  Chamberlain's  on  a  revival,  although  Sincler  alone 
or  the  five  men  is  known  to  have  passed  to  them.  If  so  it 
must  have  been  an  early  one,  since  Spencer  and  JefFes 
were  with  the  later  Admiral's  by  1597.  In  any  case 
the  Chamberlain's  revived  the  plays  before  1599 
and  left  the  names  standing.2  If  they  then  used  the 


original  prompt-book,  Sincler  may  have  taken  his  old  part, 
and  the  other  names  may  have  been  allowed  to  pass  as 
character-names.  There  is  nothing  to  suggest  that  Pem- 


broke's, once  constituted,  did  not  form  a  distinct  company. 
Henslowe's  letter  of  September  1593  suggests  that  they 
were  financially  independent.  But  indeed  we  know 
nothing  of  the  financial  conditions  under  which  the 
amalgamation  itself  worked.  The  fate  of  Pembroke's  after 
September  1 593  is  obscure.  I  formerly  thought  that  there 
was  an  unbridged  interval  of  three  or  four  years  before  a 
company  of  the  same  name  reappeared  in  I597-3  But 
visits  traced  at  Ipswich  on  7  April  1595  and  in  1595-6, 
and  at  Oxford  in  1595-6,  may  point  to  some  continuity 
of  existence.*  It  may  be  significant  that  Gabriel  Spencer 
and  probably  Humfrey  JefFes  belonged  to  the  Pembroke's 
company  of  1597. 

An  earlier  statement  of  these  views  has  met  with  some 

1  Cf.  p.  288.  *  Cf.  p.  289.     sites,  20.  The  Ipswich  notices,  found 

3  Eliz.  Stage,  ii.  131.  by  Mr.  V.  B.  Redstone,  will  be  printed 

4  Boas,  Shakespeare  and  the  Unwer-     in  M.S.C. 


Chap.  II  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  51 

demur  from  Dr.  Greg,  than  whom  no  scholar  is  better 
acquainted  with  the  evidence  or  brings  more  acute  powers 
of  criticism  to  its  analysis.1  The  main  point  at  issue  is  as 
to  the  date  at  which  the  amalgamation,  which  Dr.  Greg 
prefers  to  call  an  alliance,  began.   He  notes  that  in  the 
Burbadge  lawsuit  John  Alleyn  spoke  of  the  Admiral  as 
the  'lord'  of  the  players  at  the  Theatre,  and  that  the  only 
names  mentioned  are  those  of  Alleyn  himself  and  of  Tun- 
stall,  both  previously  Admiral's  men.  And  he  thinks  that, 
although  the  Admiral's  and  Strange's  gave  joint  per- 
formances at  court  during  1590-1,  they  remained  in- 
dependent away  from  the  court;  that  the  Admiral's  used 
the  Theatre  and  Strange's  the  Curtain;  that  James  Bur- 
badge  had  some  control  of  both  houses;  that  Richard 
Burbadge  played  indifferently  for  both  companies;  and 
that  a  closer  association  between  them  only  began  at  the 
Rose  in  1 59 1 .  I  doubt  whether  there  is  sufficient  material 
for  any  confident  decision  between  these  conflicting  hypo- 
theses. I  will  therefore  only  comment  that  I  know  no  other 
contemporary  example  of  an  actor  playing  concurrently 
for  two  companies;  and  that  there  is  an  a  priori  probability 
that  the  joint  performance  of  plays  at  court  had  been 
preceded  by  joint  'exercise'  in  public.  It  is  true,  however, 
that  in  1611-12  the  King's  and  Queen's  men,  certainly 
distinct  companies,  seem  to  have  combined  for  two  plays 
at  court.2  The  date  of  the  amalgamation  is  not  without 
importance,  since  it  bears  on  the  interpretation  of  the 
plots.    These,  from  the  presence  of  Richard  Burbadge, 
should  be  earlier  than  the  breach  with  his  father.    On 
Dr.  Greg's  theory  each  must  represent  the  self-contained 
personnel  of  one  of  the  constituent  companies  of  the  later 
amalgamation.  If  so,  he  is  probably  right  in  assigning  the 
Deadly  Sins  to  Strange's,  whom  he  assumes  to  have  been 
at  the  Curtain,  while  the  Admiral's  were  at  the  Theatre. 
The  cast  in  this  plot  is  nearly  complete,  and  it  does  not 
include  Edward  or  John  Alleyn  or  Tunstall  from  the  Ad- 
miral's.   It  is  true  that  two  important  parts,  those  of 
Henry  VI  and  Lydgate,  are  not  cast,  and  two  of  these 
'  R.E.S.  i.  257.  Cf.  App.  D. 

E  2 


52  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  Chap.  II 

actors  might  have  filled  them.  Dr.  Greg  suggests  that  they 
were  filled  by  Heminges  and  Kempe.  Neither  part,  how- 
ever, looks  like  such  a  jesting  part  as  Kempe  would 
naturally  have  taken.  There  is,  as  it  happens,  a  'Will 
foole'  in  the  plot,  but  it  was  taken  by  John  Duke.  More- 
over, if  this  was  a  play  of  1590-1,  one  would  expect 
George  Ottewell,  the  court  payee  for  that  year,  to  have 
appeared  in  it,  and  one  of  the  vacant  parts  should  on  any 
theory  have  been  his.  It  weighs,  I  think,  a  little  against 
Dr.  Greg's  view  that  the  plot,  which  in  that  view  belongs 
to  a  performance  with  which  Alleyn  was  not  concerned, 
was  found  at  Dulwich.  This  he  puts  down  to  an  'accident' 
during  the  later  amalgamation.  The  Dead  Man's  Fortune 
plot,  on  the  other  hand,  Dr.  Greg  ascribes  to  the  Admiral's 
at  the  Theatre.  I  am  not  sure  that  this  follows  very  rigidly, 
even  from  his  own  premisses.  Besides  Burbadge's,  only 
three  names  of  minor  actors  occur.  They  are  not  in  the 
Deadly  Sins  plot,  but  might  have  taken  the  uncast  Sins. 
One  of  them,  Robert  Lee,  had  a  business  transaction 
with  John  Alleyn  and  Thomas  Goodale  in  1 593  (cf,  p.  5"  1 3), 
which  proves  nothing  as  to  his  origin,  and  recurs  in  the 
next  century  as  a  Queen  Anne's  man.  No  one  of  them 
is  found  in  the  later  Admiral's  company,  unless  *b.  Samme' 
is  Samuel  Rowley.  On  my  theory,  which  puts  the  amal- 
gamation earlier  than  the  parting  with  the  Burbadges,  it 
is  not  possible  to  say  more  of  the  plots  than  that  they 
represent  performances  either  by  the  Admiral's  or  by 
Strange's  or  by  the  Alleyn  company,  and  that  they  carry 
no  evidence  as  to  which  members  of  that  company,  as  we 
find  it  in  1593,  had  originally  been  Admiral's  and  which 
Strange's  men.  We  are  left  without  any  ground  for  as- 
suming that  the  formation  of  the  Chamberlain's  and  the 
later  Admiral's  men  in  1594  represents  a  segregation  of 
elements  which  had  already  been  distinct  before  the  amal- 
gamation. And  we  cannot  tell  at  what  dates,  by  1592  and 
1593  respectively,  Kempe  and  Heminges  had  joined  one 
of  the  companies  concerned. 

Finally,  something  must  be  said  of  the  surviving 
dramatic  texts  which  can  be  related  to  the  companies 


Chap.  II  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  53 

operative  in  1583-94.  During  the  greater  part  of  the  period 
only  a  few  were  printed.  The  vicissitudes  of  the  Chapel 
probably  account  for  Lyly's  Sappho  and  Phaon  (1584) 
and  Campaspe  (1584)  and  Peele's  Arraignment  of  Paris 
(l$*4)\  the  suppression  of  Paul's  certainly  does  for  Lyly's 
Endymion  (1591),  Galathea  (1592),  and  Midas  (1592). 
From  the  Queen's  came  The  Troublesome  Reign  of  King  John 
(1591)  and  presumably  Wilson's  Three  Lords  and  Three 
Ladies  of  London  (1590);  from  the  Admiral's  Tamburlaine 
(i  590).  The  Spanish  Tragedy  (S.  R.  1592)  had  been  played 
by  Alleyn's  company  at  the  Rose  just  before  its  publication, 
although,  like  Arden  ofFaversham  (1592)  and  Soliman  and 
Perseda  (S.  R.  1592),  it  was  printed  without  any  indication 
of  its  origin.  New  conditions  were  evidently  brought 
about  by  the  reactions  of  the  plague  upon  theatrical 
finance  and  organization.  From  the  close  of  1592  to 
the  spring  of  1595  about  thirty  plays,  certainly  or 
probably  from  the  companies  of  1583-94,  were  registered 
or  printed.  Most  of  these  are  extant  in  contemporary 
prints;  some  only  in  prints  of  rather  later  date;  some  not 
at  all.  A  few  were  probably  rescued  by  the  companies; 
thus  the  Admiral's  Dr.  Faustus  (1604)  and  Jew  of  Malta 
(1633)  were  re-entered  on  the  register  before  their  ulti- 
mate publication;  and  so  was  King  Leir  (1605)  which 
had  been  played  by  Sussex's  and/or  the  Queen's  for  Hens- 
lowe  in  1594.  Several  plays,  again,  carry  no  evidence  of 
their  company.  Title-pages  or  register  entries  ascribe  to 
the  Queen's  Friar  Bacon  and  Friar  Bungay  (1594),  True 
Tragedy  of  'Richard III  (i 594),  Selimus  (1594),  Old  Wive's 
Tale  (1595),  Famous  Victories  of  Henry  the  Fifth  (1598, 
S.R.  1594),  Clyomon  and  Clamydes  (1599),  and  the  lost 
Valentine  and  Orson  (S,  R.  1595  and  1600).  We  can  pro- 
bably add  Wilson's  Cobbler's  Prophecy  (i  594),  and  possibly 
James  IV  (i  598,  S,  R.  1 594)  in  which  John  Adams,  trace- 
able as  a  Queen's  man  in  1588  but  not  in  any  company 
thereafter,  seems  to  have  been  an  actor.  To  the  'Admiral's* 
belonged  Orlando  Furioso  (1594),  Wounds  of  Civil  War 
(1594),  Battle  of  Alcazar  (1594),  Two  Angry  Women 
of  Abingdon  (i599)>  and  Massacre  at  Paris  (n.  d.);  to 


54.  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  Chap.  II 

'Strange's'  Fair  Em  (n.  d.)>  to  'Ned  Allen  and  his  Com- 
panie'  A  Knack  to  Know  a  Knave  (1594)-    From  these 
companies  probably  also  came  A  Looking  Glass  for  London 
and  England (1594),  played  by  'Strange's'  at  the  Rose  in 
1592.   To  Pembroke's  are  ascribed  Edward  II  (1594)* 
Taming  of  a  Shrew  (1594),  and  2  Contention  of  York  and 
Lancaster  (1595).  Presumably  i  Contention  (1594)  had  a 
similar  origin.  To  Sussex's  are  ascribed  George  a  Greene 
(*599>  S.  R.  1599)  and  Titus  Andronicus  (1594).  But  the 
title-page  of  Titus  Andronicus  is  exceptionally  full,  and 
claims  performance  of  the  play  by  Derby's,  Pembroke's, 
and  Sussex's.  The  evidence  from  a  single  name  on  a  title- 
page  must  not  be  pressed  too  far.   It  is  probably  that  of 
the  last  company  which  performed  the  play  before  it  was 
printed.    But  this  was  not  necessarily  the  company  for 
which  it  was  written.  Play  'books'  might  be  sold,  either  by 
a  company  as  a  whole,  or  by  individual  actors  to  whom 
they  had  fallen  on  a  division  of  a  joint  stock.  In  some  such 
way  we  must  suppose  that  the  Alleyn  company  acquired 
the  Queen's  play  of  Seven  Deadly  Sins\  possibly  also  the 
Looking  Glass,  since  this,  like  James  IV,  seems  at  one  time 
to  have  had  John  Adams  in  its  cast.  A  company,  again, 
might  obtain  permission  to  perform  a  play,  of  which  the 
'book*  was  not  their  own  property.    Bacon  and  Bungay 
bears  the  name  of  the  Queen's.  They  had  played  it,  alone 
or  with  Sussex's,  at  one  of  Henslowe's  houses  in  1594. 
And  in  the  same  season  had  been  played  Jew  of  Malta, 
Ranger's  Comedy,  and  King  Leir.    But  Strange's  had 
already  played  both  Bacon  and  Bungay  and  Jew  of  Malta 
at  the  Rose,  and  both  Jew  of  Malta  and  Ranger's  Comedy 
certainly  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  later  Admiral's  men. 
Probably,  therefore,  the  Queen's  and/or  Sussex's  only  gave 
these  three  plays  under  some  arrangement  with  Alleyn. 
To  whom  Leir  belonged  we  cannot  say.    On  the  other 
hand,  I  do  not  think  that  performance  by  a  company  of 
a  play  already  printed  is  proof  at  this  period  of  ownership 
by  that  company  before  publication,  although  it  is  obvious 
that  the  possession  of  parts  and  properties  would  facilitate 
a  revival.  A  definite  protection  of  acting  rights  in  pub- 


Chap.  II  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  55 

lished  plays  by  the  Lord  Chamberlain  seems  to  have  been 
a  seventeenth-century  development.  Alleyn's  company 
had  not,  therefore,  necessarily  possessed  Edward  I 
(1593),  which  the  later  Admiral's  possibly  revived; 
nor  do  I  think  that  the  Chamberlain's  had  any 
special  rights  in  Titus  Andronicus>  A  Shrew,  Famous  Vic- 
tories^ Troublesome  Reign,  Leir,  or  Mucedorus.  If  so,  a 
company  could  not  very  well  sell  a  play  both  to  another 
company  and  to  a  bookseller.  It  is  likely  that  the  book- 
sellers did  not  get  all  their  1593-5  stock  in  the  same  way. 
The  ruin  of  the  Queen's  and  Pembroke's  may  have  led  to  the 
dispersal  of  their  repertories  in  bulk  or  of  the  shares  of  dis- 
banded individuals.  Titus  Andronicus  probably  passed  from 
Pembroke's  to  Sussex's  and  2, 3  Henry  PI  from  Pembroke's 
to  the  Chamberlain's.  Even  solvent  companies  may  have 
parted  with  plays  to  meet  temporary  financial  needs,  or 
because  they  had  become  obsolete.  In  particular,  versions 
adapted  to  the  reducedpersonnelof  travelling  groups  may  not 
have  been  thought  suitable  for  the  London  theatres.  And 
some  of  the  printed  texts  appear  to  rest,  not  upon  tiring- 
house  'books',  but  upon  surreptitious  sales  by  actors  or 
book-keepers  of  versions  reconstructed  from  memory. 

The  fragmentary  nature  of  the  evidence  makes  a 
dramatic  history  of  the  period  extremely  difficult.  The 
work  of  even  the  best-known  writers  is  uncertain  in  extent 
and  chronology,  and  much  of  it  has  come  down  in  muti- 
lated form.  Marlowe's  authorship  of  Tamburlaine  is  a 
matter  of  inference;  it  is  only  by  an  accident  that  we  know 
the  Spanish  Tragedy  to  be  Kyd's.  Some  at  least  of  the 
anonymous  plays  are  probably  due  to  untraced  pens.  No 
satisfactory  attribution  of  so  remarkable  a  piece  as  Arden 
ofFaversham  has  been  arrived  at.  We  know  that  Thomas 
Watson  was  an  active  playwright,  but  nothing  passes 
under  his  name,  Henslowe  was  paymaster  in  the  later 
'nineties  to  many  penmen  whose  earlier  careers  are  ob- 
scure. Henry  Porter,  for  example,  is  now  known  to  have 
been  at  work  by  1589.*  One  may  venture  the  suggestion 
that  the  rise  of  Alleyn  was  due,  not  only  to  his  own  powers 

'  H.  C.  Hart,  3  Hen.  VI  (Arden),  xlii. 


56  THE  STAGE  IN  1592  Chap.  II 

as  an  actor,  but  also  to  his  early  employment  of  better 
dramatists  than  the  Queen's  could  boast.  All  of  Marlowe's 
known  work,  except  Dido  and  possibly  Edward  //,  seems 
to  have  been  for  companies  with  which  he  was  associated. 
The  Spanish  Tragedy  may  have  been  written  for  him;  if 
not,  he  made  use  of  it  later.  Peele,  Lodge,  Greene,  Porter, 
all  contributed  to  his  repertory.  He  carried  on  the  tradi- 
tion of  the  literary  drama,  which  Spenser  mistakenly  be- 
lieved to  have  perished  with  Lyly.  I  do  not  doubt  that  the 
Queen's,  in  their  post-Tarlton  days,  attempted  to  follow 
suit.  It  is  only  an  impression  that  they  put  their  money 
on  Greene  as  against  Marlowe.  I  do  not  suggest  that 
Marlowe,  or  Greene,  or  any  other  writer  not  himself  an 
actor,  was  tied  to  a  particular  company.  We  know  that 
Greene's  university  education  did  not  prevent  him  from 
selling  Orlando  Furioso  first  to  the  Queen's,  and  then, 
when  the  Queen's  were  in  the  country,  to  the  Admiral's. 


CHAPTER  III 
SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY 

[Bibliographical  Note.  I  have  dealt  fully  with  the  Chamberlain's-King's 
men  and  their  theatres  in  chh.  xiii,  xv,  xvi,  and  xvii  of  The  Elizabethan 
Stage  (1923).  Later  books  of  importance  are  T.  W.  Baldwin,  The  Organi- 
zation and  Personnel  of  the  Shakespearean  Company  (1927);  G.  Hubbard, 
On  the  Site  of  the  Globe  Playhouse  of  Sh.  (1923);  W.  W.  Braines,  The 
Site  of  the  Globe  Playhouse,  Southwark  (2nd  ed.  1924).  Some  theatrical 
documents  are  collected  and  discussed  in  Appendix  A,  nos.  vii,  viii,  and 
Appendix  D.  The  books  of  wider  range  noted  for  ch.  i  are  relevant  for 
this  chapter  also.  On  Shakespeare's  conjectured  travels  are  K.  Elze,  Shs 
muthmasslicheReisen.(i%T$,  J.viu.tf;  Essays,  254);  Tk.JLlz^Italienische 
Skizzen  zu  St.  (1878-80,  J.  xiii.  137;  xiv.  156;  xv.  230),  Venezianische 
Skizzen  zu  SL  (1899);  G.  Sarrazin,  Sh.  in  Mantua?  (1894,  J.  xxix.249), 
Neue  italienische  Skizzen  zu  Sh.  (1895-1906,  J.  xxxi.  165;  xxxvi.  95; 
xxxix.  62;  xiii.  179),  St.  in  Mailand?  (1910,  J.  xlvi.  114);  E.  Koppel, 
War  Sh.  in  Italien?  (1899,  J.  xxxv.  122);  W.  Keller,  Zu  Shs  italie- 
nischer  Reise  (1899,  J.  xxxv.  260);  E.  Sullivan,  Sh.  and  the  Waterways  of 
North  Italy  (1908,  Nineteenth  Century,  Ixiv.  215),  Sh.  and  Italy  (1918, 
ibid.,  Ixxxiii.  138,  323);  J.  S.  Smart,  Sh.9s  Italian  Names  (1916,  M.L.R. 
xi.  339);  J.  Stefansson,  St.  at  Elsinore  (1896,  Contemporary  Review.,  Ixix. 
20);  H.  Logeman,  Sh.  te  Helsingor  (1904,  Melanges  Paul  Fredericy)\ 
W.  J.  Lawrence,  Was  SL  ever  in  Ireland?  (1906,  J.  xiii.  65).  Shake- 
speare's personal  relations  to  other  writers  are  discussed  in  R.  Simpson, 
The  School  of  Sh.  (1878);  J.  H.  Penniman,  The  War  of  the  Theatres 
(1897);  R.  A.  Small,  The  Stage  Quarrel  between  Ben  Jonson  and  the  So- 
called  Poetasters  (1899);  G.  Sarrazin,  Nym  and  Ben  Jonson  (1904,  J.  xl. 
213);  G.  G.  Greenwood,  Ben  Jonson  and  Sh.  (1921);  A.  Gray,  How  Sh. 
'Purged'  Jonson  (1928);  A.  Acheson,  Sh.  and  the  Rival  Poet  (1903), 
Mistress  Davenant  (1913),  Sh.9s  Lost  Tears  in  London  (1920),  Sh.'s  Sonnet 
Story  (1922);  J.  M.  Robertson,  Sh.  and  Chapman  (1917).  Theories  as  to 
his  'topical*  handling  of  contemporary  history,  and  in  particular  the  lives 
of  James  I  and  the  Earl  of  Essex,  must  be  sought  in  the  literature  of  the 
plays  (ch.  ix),  especially  Mid.  N.  Dr.,  Rich.  II,  Hen.  V,  Ham.,  Oth.,  Macb., 
K.  Lear,  Timon,  Temp.,  and  of  the  Sonnets  (ch.  xi).  C.  C.  Slopes  has 
written  The  Life  of  Henry,  Third  Earl  of  Southampton  (1922).  There  is 
none  of  the  Earl  of  Pembroke,  beyond  tike  D.N.B.  Conflicting  views  on 
Sh/s  religion  may  be  found  in  J.  Carter,  Sh.  Puritan  and  Recusant  (i  897), 
and  H.  S.  Bowden,  The  Religion  of  Sh.  (1899).  A  pleasant  estimate  of 
his  character  is  that  of  H.  C.  Beeching,  The  Benefit  of  the  Doubt  (1916, 
Sh.  Homage,  120).] 

THE  intricacies  of  the  last  chapter  have  at  least  shown  that 
1592  to  1594  were  years  of  theatrical  disorganization.  It 


58  SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY       Chap.  Ill 

is  during  this  period  of  hasty  seasons  broken  by  ^  plague, 
of  the  setting  up  and  ruin  of  ephemeral  companies^  that 
Shakespeare  first  emerges  as  player  and  playwright. 
Robert  Greene,  from  his  squalid  death-bed  on  3  Septem- 
ber 1 592,  left  a  literary  testament.  It  foreshadows  the  end 
of  an  epoch,  that  of  the  domination  of  the  stage  by  Uni- 
versity pens.  Greene's  eclipse  was  shortly  to  be  followed 
by  that  of  Marlowe  on  30  May  1593.  But  Marlowe  and 
two  others,  probably  Peele  and  either  Nashe  or  Lodge, 
were  the  objects  of  Greene's  address  To  those  Gentlemen 
his  Quondam  Acquaintance,  that  spend  their  wits  in  making 
plaies.1  It  is  a  bitter  attack  upon  the  companies,  who  have 
been  beholden  to  him  for  the  lines  they  have  spoken  and 
have  now  deserted  him.  They  will  desert  his  friends  like- 
wise, since  they  have  now  a  writer  of  their  own. 

Yes  trust  them  not:  for  there  is  an  upstart  Crow,  beautified  with 
our  feathers,  that  with  his  Tygers  hart  wrapt  in  a  Players  hide, 
supposes  he  is  as  well  able  to  bombast  out  a  blanke  verse  as  the  best 
of  you:  and  beeing  an  absolute  Johannes  fac  totum,  is  in  his  owne 
conceit  the  onely  Shake-scene  in  a  countrey. 

The  invective  was  printed  in  Greene's  Groats-worth  of  Wit, 
shortly  after  the  author's  death,  and  Henry  Chettle,  who 
prepared  it  for  the  press,  made  something  of  an  apology 
for  it  in  his  own  Kind-Harts  Dreame,  itself  registered 
before  the  end  of  1592.2  The  letter  had  been  'written  to 
divers  play-makers'  and  was  'offensively  by  one  or  two  of 
them  taken*.  With  neither  of  these  was  Chettle  acquainted 
when  he  worked  on  the  Groats-worth,  and  with  one  of 
them  he  does  not  desire  to  be.  But  he  thinks  that  he  might 
well  have  moderated  the  reference  to  the  other. 

That  I  did  not,  I  am  as  sory  as  if  the  originall  fault  had  beene 
rny  fault,  because  my  selfe  have  scene  his  demeanor  no  lesse  civill 
than  he  exelent  in  the  qualitie  he  professes:  Besides,  divers  of  wor- 
ship have  reported  his  uprightnes  of  dealingwhich  argueshis  honesty, 
and  his  facetious  grace  in  writting,  that  aprooves  his  Art. 

It  is  probable  that  the  first  play-maker  here  referred  to  is 

1  APP-  B»  n<>-  «»•  *  App.  B,  no.  iv. 


Chap.  Ill       SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY  59 

Marlowe  and  the  second  Shakespeare,  although  this  im- 

Elies  some  looseness  in  Chettle's  language,  since  Greene's 
stter  was  obviously  not  written  to  Shakespeare.  But  there 
is  nothing  in  the  letter  as  we  have  it  which  could  be 
offensive  to  any  play-maker  except  Marlowe,  who  is 
spoken  of  as  an  atheist  and  Machiavellian,  and  Shake- 
speare, who  is  openly  attacked.  The  others,  presumably 
Peele  and  Nashe,  *y°ung  luuenall,  that  byting  Satyrist, 
that  lastlie  with  mee  together  writ  a  Comedie',  are  handled 
in  a  more  friendly  spirit.  However  this  may  be, 
Greene's  letter  in  itself  is  sufficient  to  show  that  by 
September  1592  Shakespeare  was  both  a  player  and  a 
maker  of  plays.  And  it  is  a  fair  inference  from  Greene's 
tone  that  he  was  only  just  taking  rank  as  a  serious  rival  to 
the  University  men.  How  far  back  are  we  to  put  the 
beginnings  of  his  dramaturgy?  Probably  as  far  as  1591, 
if  he  is  responsible,  as  their  inclusion  in  Fi  suggests,  for 
2,  3  Henry  VL  Greene's  letter  parodies  a  line  from 
3  Henry  VI^  which  must  therefore  itself  have  existed  as 
early  as  1592.  The  relation  of  these  parts  to  i  Henry  VI \ 
produced  by  Alleyn's  company  on  3  March  1592,  is  best 
explained  by  regarding  them  as  earlier  productions  of  the 
same  company,  and  since  they  were  not  being  played  in 
1 592,  they  had  presumably  been  laid  aside.  As,  moreover, 
the  supplementary  play  is  likely  to  have  followed  after  no 
long  interval,  we  may  conjecturally  put  them  in  1591. 
That,  then,  is  the  earliest  year  to  which  there  is  ground 
for  ascribing  any  dramatic  work  by  Shakespeare  that  we 
know  of.  And  even  as  a  player  his  career  may  not  have 
begun  long  before  1592.  It  is  a  mere  fantasy  that  he  was 
enlisted  by  Leicester's  men  on  a  visit  to  Stratford-on-Avon 
in  1586—7;  and  Professor  Baldwin's  conjecture  that  he 
may  have  then  begun  a  seven-year  period  of  formal 
apprenticeship  in  a  company  rests  upon  a  complete  mis- 
apprehension of  the  nature  of  theatrical  training.1  Tradi- 
tion tells  us,  through  the  mouth  of  Dowdall  (1693),  that 
Shakespeare  'was  received  into  the  playhouse  as  a  ser- 
viture',  and  through  that  of  Rowe  (1709)  that  he  was  *at 

*  Malone  in  Var.  ii.  1665  Baldwin,  286;  cf.  vol.  ii,  p.  82. 


60  SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY       Chap.  Ill 

first  in  a  very  mean  rank'.1  Both  imply  a  direct  trans- 
ference from  Stratford,  which  I  take  to  be  a  foreshortening 
of  events;  and  both  probably  mean  the  same  thing,  that 
he  was  at  first  a  hired  man  and  not  a  sharer,  which  is  likely 
enough.2  Malone  (1780,  1790)  had  heard  from  the  stage 
that  he  was  originally  employed  as*a  prompter's  attendant 
or  call-boy,  but  the  statement  is  dropped  from  his  revised 
Life.  It  commends  itself  to  Professor  Baldwin.3  A  story 
not  given  by  Rowe,  but  apparently  known  to  him  and 
originally,  derived  from  Sir  William  Davenant,  tells  how 
before  Shakespeare  became  an  actor  he  occupied  himself 
in  taking  charge  of  horses  at  the  playhouse  door,  and 
showed  dexterity  in  the  employment.*  For  what  it  is 
worth,  the  story  points  to  the  Theatre  or  Curtain,  as  these 
were  the  only  houses  reached  by  horseback.  Both  were  in 
the  hands  of  Alleyn's  company  or  its  component  elements 
in  1590-1,  and  this  company  may  well  have  seen  his  first 
beginnings,  alike  as  actor  and  as  writer.  He  is  not,  how- 
ever, traceable  in  the  cast  of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins  about 
I59°j  unless  we  arbitrarily  assume  that  he  took  one  of  the 
unascribed  parts.  The  'Will'  of  that  cast  was  a  boy,  who 
took  a  woman's  part,5 

After  Greene's  outburst  of  1 592,  Shakespeare's  position 
becomes  shadowy  again,  up  to  the  regrouping  of  the  com- 
panies in  1594.  We  certainly  cannot  have  any  assurance 
that  he  was  with  Alleyn's  company  during  their  wander- 
ings. He  is  not  named  in  the  warrant  of  6  May  1593, 
which  probably  gives  only  sharers,  or  in  Alleyn's  corre- 
spondence. He  may  have  been  with  Pembroke's,  if  that 
was  formed  by  a  division  of  Alleyn's  company,  or  with  the 
group  which  travelled  as  the  Admiral's,  or  even  with  Sus- 
sex's.6 Or  he  may  for  a  time  have  dropped  acting,  and 
become  an  unattached  playwright.  The  only  plays  that 
can  very  well  be  assigned  to  this  period  are  Richard  ///, 
Titus  AndronicuSy  and  Comedy  of  Errors.  Of  these  Richard 

1  App.  C,  nos.  xviii,  xxv.  *  App.  C,  nos.  xxxvi,  xxxviii,  xlii. 

2  Cf.  vol.  ii,  p.  80.  s  Cf.  p.  44. 

3  App.  C,  no.  xlviiij  cf.  Baldwin,  6  Cf.  App.  D  for  the  performances 
293.  of  the  companies  in  1592-4. 


Chap.  Ill       SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY  61 

» 

///  is  certainly  a  continuation  of  2,  3  Henry  VI.   It  is  not 
in  Henslowe's  list  of  performances  by  the  Alleyn  com- 
pany, but  it  Seems  clear  that  2,  3  Henry  VI  must  have 
passed  to  Pembroke's,  and  Richard  III  may  have  been 
done  for  them.   Perhaps  it  reappears  as  the  Buckingham 
given  by  Sussex's  men  in  1593-4,  although  the  name 
would  also  fit  a  play  on  Henry  the  Eighth.  The  title-page 
of  Titus  Andronicus  suggests  that  it  was  played  successively 
by  Alleyn's  company,  Pembroke's,  and  Sussex's,  and  any 
touches  put  to  it  by  Shakespeare  might  have  been  for  either, 
the  last  most  plausibly,  of  these.   The  Comedy  of  Errors  may 
have  been  'the  Gelyous  comodey'  produced  by  the  Alleyn 
company  on  5  January  1593,  but  about  this  I  am  far  from 
certain.   It  is  at  any  rate  possible,  however,  that  Shake- 
speare may  have  been  writing  for  three  companies  during 
1592-4.  Much  research  has  been  devoted  to  a  conjecture 
that  he  spent  part  of  this  period  in  northern  Italy.   It  is 
certainly  true  that  when  the  plague  was  over  he  began  a 
series  of  plays  with  Italian  settings,  which  were  something 
of  a  new  departure  in  English  drama;  that  to  a  modern 
imagination,  itself  steeped  in  Italian  sentiment,  he  seems 
to  have  been  remarkably  successful  in  giving  a  local 
colouring  and  atmosphere  to  these;  and  even  that  he  shows 
familiarity  with  some  minute  points  of  local  topography. 
But  the  evidence  is  inconclusive,  in  view  of  what  he  may 
have  learnt  through  books  and  the  visits  of  others,  or 
through  converse  with  some  of  the  many  Italians  resident 
in  London.  Supposed  travels,  now  or  at  another  time,  to 
Ireland  or  to  Denmark,  are  even  more  speculative.   One 
is  on  safer  ground  in  pointing  out  that  the  plague  years 
gave  opportunity  for  the  development  of  literary  ambitions 
outside  the  range  of  the  drama,  which  took  shape  in  the 
narrative  poems  of  Venus  and  Adonis  (1593)  and  Lucrece 
(1594).  Each  was  dedicated  with  an  elaborate  epistle  to 
Henry  Wriothesley,  Earl  of  Southampton,  a  young  noble- 
man of  Catholic  antecedents,  who  was  just  beginning  to 
make  a  figure  at  court.  A  super-subtle  criticism  detects 
a  great  advance  in  the  poet's  intimacy  with  his  patron 
between  the  two  addresses,  which  I  am  bound  to  say  is 


62  SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY       Chap.  Ill 

not  apparent  to  me.  In  the  first  Shakespeare  offers  'the 
first  heire  of  my  inuention',  that  is,  his  first  published 
work,  and  will  'take  aduantage  of  all  idle  houres,  till  I  haue 
honoured  you  with  some  grauer  labour*.  In  the  second, 
'What  I  haue  done  is  yours,  what  I  haue  to  doe  is  jours, 
being  part  in  all  I  haue,  deuoted  yours/  Each  is  sub- 
scribed 'in  all  dutie'.  The  phrasing  in  both  cases  seems 
to  fall  well  within  the  normal  scope  of  dedicatory  formulas. 
Not  many  idle  hours  would  have  been  at  Shakespeare's 
disposal,  had  he  done  all  the  revisionary  work  and  early 
drafts  or  fragments  of  plays,  with  which  some  writers 
credit  his  pupil  pen;  and  if  such  theories  were  sound, 
which  I  do  not  believe,  we  should  certainly  have  to  ante- 
date 1591  for  the  beginning  of  his  dramatic  career.1  If 
one  can  trust  the  apparent  testimony  of  WilhUe  his  Avisa, 
he  had  at  any  rate  sufficient  leisure,  in  or  shortly  before 
1594,  for  an  unsuccessful  love  affair.2 

An  Elizabethan  patron  was  expected  to  put  his  hand  in 
his  pocket.  Rowe  tells  us  that  Shakespeare  met  ^with 
'many  great  and  uncommon  marks  of  favour  and  friend- 
ship* from  Southampton,  and  on  Davenant's  authority  that 
the  Earl  'at  one  time,  gave  him  a  thousand  pounds,  to 
enable  him  to  go  through  with  a  purchase  which  he  heard 
he  had  a  mind  to'.3  The  sum  named  is  quite  incredible. 
The  aggregate  of  Shakespeare's  known  purchases  in  real 
estate  and  tithes  throughout  his  life  does  not  reach  £1,000. 
Probably  a  cipher  has  been  added  to  the  figures  during 
the  transmission  of  the  story;  and  some  such  amount  as 
£100  Shakespeare  may  have  spent  on  acquiring  a  share  in 
the  Lord  Chamberlain's  company,  when  it  was  formed 
during  1594.  There  is  no  ground  for  supposing  that  he 
was  the  William  Shakespeare  who  had  enough  spare  cash 
to  lend  one  John  Clayton  £7  in  May  1592,  and  had  to 
sue  for  it  in  1 6oo.4  At  any  rate  Shakespeare  comes  before 
us  on  15  March  1595  with  an  assured  theatrical  status  as  a 
payee  on  behalf  of  the  Chamberlain's  men  for  plays  given  at 
court  in  the  winter  of  1 594,  and  therefore  doubtless  a  sharer 

1  Cf.  ch.  vii.  »  App.  C,  no.  xxv. 

2  Cf.  p.  569.  «  App.  A,  no.  vi. 


Chap.  Ill       SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY  63 

in  the  company.1  The  Chamberlain's  men,  as  we  have 
seen,  established  themselves,  like  the  Admiral's  men  who 
were  destined  to  become  their  principal  rivals,  on  the 
break-up  of  the  Alleyn  combination  in  the  spring  of  1594. 
Ferdinando  Earl  of  Derby  died  on  April  16.  On  May  16 
men  under  the  protection  of  his  widow  were  playing  at 
Winchester,  and  'Admiral's'  men  were  playing  for  Hens- 
lowe  in  London.  Very  shortly  afterwards  the  patronage 
of  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  Henry  Lord  Hunsdon,  must 
have  been  obtained.  But  the  parting  with  Alleyn  may  not 
yet  have  been  quite  complete,  since  on  June  5  Henslowe 
began  to  record  performances  by  'my  Lord  Admeralle 
men  &  my  Lorde  Chamberlen  men'  at  Newington  Butts.2 
The  plays  given  included  Titus  Andronicus,  Hamlet,  and 
Taming  of  A  Shrew.  It  may  be  that  A  Shrew  was  already 
The  Shrew,  but  the  Hamlet  was  certainly  not  Shake- 
speare's. Probably  this  arrangement  terminated  on  June 
15,  when  Henslowe  drew  a  line  across  the  page  of  ac- 
counts, after  which  these  three  plays  no  longer  appear.3 
Thenceforward  the  two  companies  may  be  taken  to  have 
been  quite  distinct.  The  Chamberlain's  were  at  Marl- 
borough  about  September.*  On  October  8  Lord  Hunsdon 
was  negotiating  with  the  Lord  Mayor  for  the  use  by  'my 
nowe  companie'  of  the  Cross  Keys  inn  for  the  winter 
season.5  It  is  best  to  assume  that  as  a  business  organiza- 
tion the  Chamberlain's  company,  unable  to  rely  on  finan- 
cial support  from  Alleyn,  made  a  fresh  start,  and  that  its 
capital  was  contributed  by  the  sharers.  No  doubt  there 
was  some  apportionment  of  the  'books*  belonging  to  the 
old  combination,  and  in  some  way  all  those  for  Shake- 
speare's earlier  plays,  including  any  which  had  been  per- 
formed by  Pembroke's  or  Sussex's,  seem  to  have  passed 
into  the  hands  of  the  Chamberlain's.  Titus  Andranicus, 
however,  was  already  in  print.  The  membership  of  the 
new  company  included  the  five  men  who  had  been  named 
with  Alleyn  in  the  warrant  for  'StrangeY  of  6  May  1593. 

1  Cf.  vol.  ii,  p.  319.  4  For  all  their  provincial  appear- 

2  Cf.  App.  D.  ances  cf.  App.  D. 

3  Greg,  Henstowe,  ii,  84.  s  Etiz.  Stage,  iv.  316. 


64  SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY       Chap.  Ill 

They  were  William  Kempe,  Thomas  Pope,  John  Hem- 
inges,  Augustine  Phillips,  and  George  Bryan.    It  also 
included  Shakespeare  and  Richard  Burbadge,  who  became 
its  leading  actor.   Its  history,  first  under  the  designation 
of  the  Chamberlain's  men,  and  then  under  that  of  the 
King's  men,   is  continuous  throughout   Shakespeare's 
career,  and  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  he  ever  wrote 
for  any  other  company.    It  became  dominant  at  court, 
giving  thirty-two  performances  during  Elizabeth's  reign 
to  tweftty  by  the  Admiral's  and  thirteen  by  other  com- 
panies.1   And  during  this  period  its  run  of  prosperity 
seems  to  have  been  substantially  unbroken.2  Plague  only 
threatened  once,  for  a  short  period  in  1596.*  In  the  same 
year  there  was  a  hitch,  owing  to  the  death  of  Lord  Huns- 
don,  and  the  appointment  as  Lord  Chamberlain  of  William 
Lord  Cobham,  who  was  less  favourable  to  the  stage  than 
his  predecessor,  and  under  whom  the  Corporation  secured 
the  exclusion  of  players  from  the  City  inns,  while  the  in- 
habitants of  Blackfriars  successfully  protested  against  the 
opening  of  the  new  house  which  James  Burbadge  may  be 
presumed  to  have  planned  for  the  use  of  his  son  and  his 
son's  fellows.   Curiously  enough,  one  of  the  protestants 
was  the  new  Lord  Hunsdon,  formerly  Sir  George  Carey, 
and  now  the  patron  of  the  company.4  But  when  he  him- 
self became  Lord  Chamberlain  on  17  March  1597,  his 
players  had  once  more  the  advantage  of  an  official  pro- 
tector. They  had  of  course  to  face  the  restraint  of  28  July 
1597,  when  offence  was  given  by  The  Isle  of  Dogs,  for 
which  they  were  not  responsible,  and  in  August  and 

tour  between  1594  and  the  end  of  the  reign.5  But  they 
stood  to  gain  by  the  settlement  at  the  end  of  the  restraint, 
under  which  only  two  companies  were  to  be  tolerated,  and 
although  a  Privy  Council  order  of  22  June  1600  limited 
each  company  to  two  performances  a  week,  it  is  clear 

1  EKz.  Stage,  iv.  164.  4  #/</. 

»  A  fuller  history  of  the  company  *  Visits  to  Cambridge  and  Ipswich 

than  I^have  here  room  for  is  in  £tix.  may  belong  either  to  the  autumn  of 

Stage,  11. 192.  I594  or  to 

*  Elan.  Stage,  iv.  319. 


PLATE   V! 


(«)  GEORGE  LORD  HUNSDON 


(b)  HENRY  LORD  HUNSDON 
THE  LORDS  CHAMBERLAIN 


Chap.  Ill       SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY  65 

that  the  restriction  was  not  long  enforced.  On  the  other 
hand  they  had  to  face  fresh  competition  from  the  revival 
of  the  boy  companies  in  1599  and  1600,  which  for  a  time 
hit  them  pretty  hard,  and  from  the  toleration  of  a  third 
company  of  men  in  I6O2.1  Some  ruffles  there  were  from 
time  to  time  with  the  censorship.  Richard  II  was  printed 
in  1597  without  the  abdication  scene,  which  had  probably 
been  thought  unsuitable  for  an  Elizabethan  public.  Fal- 
staff  had  to  be  substituted  for  Oldcastle  in  Henry  IV  and 
Broome  for  Brooke  in  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor.  Brooke  was 
the  family  name  of  the  Lords  Cobham,  who  also  claimed 
an  hereditary  interest  in  Sir  John  Oldcastle.  In  1 598  there 
were  complaints  in  Scotland  that  'the  comedians  of 
London  should  scorn  the  king  and  the  people  of  this  land 
in  their  play'.2  We  do  not  know  that  these  comedians 
were  the  Chamberlain's  men.  The  Scots  are  hardly  treated 
in  Edward  Illy  printed  in  1596,  which  may  be  theirs,  and 
it  is  conceivable  that  the  absence  of  the  Captain  Jamy 
episode  (iii.  2.  69—153)  from  the  1600  quarto  of  Henry  V 
•may  be  due  to  censorship,  although  other  explanations  are 
also  possible.  There  is  no  sign,  however,  that  these  inci- 
dents brought  any  trouble  upon  the  company.  It  is  even 
more  remarkable  that  they  suffered  nothing  on  account  of 
the  performance  of  Richard  //,  which  they  gave  at  the 
behest  of  some  of  the  followers  of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  as 
a  prelude  to  his  misguided  outbreak  of  8  February  i6oi.3 
Elizabeth  grumbled  at  the  popularity  of  the  play,  but 
showed  no  resentment  against  the  poet  or  the  players.  It 
may  be  that  during  1600-1  they  were  absent  for  a  short 
time  from  London.  There  are  no  certain  provincial  notices 
of  them,  but  there  is  a  possible  one  at  Oxford,  and  the  title- 
page  of  the  Qi  of  Hamlet  records  that  it  had  been  played 
at  Oxford  and  Cambridge  and  elsewhere,  as  well  as  in 
London  itself,  before  it  was  published  in  1603.  But  it  is 
not  clear  that  the  journeying,  if  it  took  place,  was  due  to 
Richard  Ily  and  the  company  was  at  court  on  24  February 
1 60 1,  only  a  fortnight  after  the  Essex  affair,  and  again  as 
usual  during  the  following  Christmas.  Perhaps  we  may 

1  Elba.  Stage,  i.  298,  380$  iv.  321-34.        *  £#«•  Stage,  i.  323.        3  App.  D- 
3142,1  F 


66  SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY       Chap.  Ill 

credit  Elizabeth's  leniency,  at  least  in  part,  to  her  personal 
liking  for  Shakespeare's  art.  Of  this  we  are  informed  both 
by  Ben  Jonson's  lines  and  by  the  tradition  of  her  im- 
patience to  see  Falstaff  in  love.   The  alleged  interchange 
of  royal  courtesies  over  her  dropped  glove,  when  the  poet 
was  enacting  a  king  upon  the  stage,  must,  I  fear,  be 
abandoned.1    No  doubt  the  Tudor  lady  had  moods  in 
which  she  was  capable  of  scourging  those  whom  she  most 
favoured.  But  the  Lord  Chamberlain  was  never  far  from 
the  royal  chair.    The  Hunsdons,  father  and  son,  were 
Elizabeth's  nearest  cousins  and  her  close  personal  ad- 
herents. Of  all  the  court,  they  could  least  be  suspected  of 
sympathy  with  seditious  tendencies.   It  was  easy  enough 
to  slip  in  a  word  to  save  honest  men  from  the  consequences 
of  their  indiscretions.   After  all,  the  company  had  only 
been  a  cat's-paw  for  the  conspirators.   It  is  impossible  to 
suppose  that  Shakespeare,  in  writing  Richard  //,  deliber- 
ately intended  to  suggest  the  analogy  between  Richard 
and  the  queen,  which  from  a  matter  of  jest  at  court  became 
an  mstrument  of  serious  intrigue.   The  play  is  one  of  a 
series  of  studies  in  abstract  kingship,  which  culminate  not 
in  the  coup  d'etat  of  Henry  Bolingbroke,  but  in  the  coming 
to  his  own  of  Henry  of  Monmouth,  a  legitimate  king  both 
by  right  of  birth  and  as  a  typical  representative  of  the 
English  nation.  That  while  portraying  Henry's  kingship 
Shakespeare  became  a  little  doubtful  about  the  ultimate 
fineness  of  his  humanity,  does  not  affect  the  main  dramatic 
issue.    The  political  philosophy  of  the  plays,  from  Sir 
Thomas  More,  perhaps,  to  Ulysses,  always  lays  its  stress  on 
degree,  order,  and  unity.  Imaginative  biography,  bent  on 
its  search  for  the  topical,  delights  to  represent  Shakespeare 
as  obsessed  by  the  career  of  Essex  and  making  that 
picturesque  and  second-rate  personality  the  theme  of  play 
after  play.    His  is  the  unstable  mind  of  Hamlet,  and 
Burghley,  whom  Essex  hated,  becomes  his  foil  in  Polo- 
mus.  His  is  the  ill-requited  generosity  of  Timon,  deserted 
by  Ventidms  as  Essex  was  deserted  by  Bacon.  Along  such 
a  way  of  thinking,  Essex  may  also  become  Henry  Boling- 

*  App.  C,  no.  Ivi. 


Chap.  Ill       SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY  67 

broke,  or  Henry  of  Monmouth,  for  all  the  difference 
between  them,  according  to  taste.  There  are,  however, 
conflicting  speculations.  For  some,  Hamlet  is  not  Essex 
but  James,  or  both  Essex  and  James,  and  the  adventures 
of  Mary  of  Scots  and  Bothwell,  under  the  guise  of  Lord 
and  Lady  Macbeth,  were  chosen  for  the  delectation  of 
Mary's  son.  And  the  minor  personages  of  the  time,  seen 
by  us,  not  as  their  contemporaries  saw  them,  but  ill- 
focused  through  the  fragmentary  revelations  of  private 
papers,  must  all  be  brought  into  the  picture.  Most  of 
these  cobwebs  are  too  flimsy  to  bear  touching.  One  can- 
not be  expected  to  argue  whether  Lord  Buckhurst  was  or 
was  not  Sir  Toby  Belch.1  I  do  not  myself  believe  that, 
apart  from  some  passages  of  obvious  satire  in  comic  scenes, 
there  is  much  of  the  topical  in  Shakespeare,  whose  mind 
normally  moved  upon  quite  another  plane  of  relation  to 
life.  What  little  there  is,  probably  remains  for  the  most 
part  irrecoverable.  Of  course  he  had  to  build  up  his 
characters,  consciously  or  subconsciously,  and  with  the 
help  of  traditional  stage  types,  from  the  Dualities  of  men 
and  women  he  had  known,  or  had  read  of  in  books.  There 
was  no  other  material  for  him  or  any  other  dramatist.  But 
this  is  a  very  different  process  from  the  making  of  por- 
traits. For  topics  of  political  controversy,  in  particular, 
there  was  no  room  in  the  Elizabethan  theatre,  although 
the  position  was  somewhat  altered  under  the  laxer  and  less 
popular  administration  of  James.  You  could  beat  the 
patriotic  drum  against  the  Spaniards,  of  course.  You 
could  flout  the  Scots,  at  least  under  cover  of  an  historical 
play.  Even  here  there  might  be  a  risk,  as  the  wind  of 
diplomacy  veered.  But  you  could  not  ventilate  the  griev- 
ances of  the  subject,  of  which  indeed  there  were  few  except 
the  monopolies,  or  touch  upon  ecclesiastical  affairs,  or 
champion  the  conflicting  views  of  Essex  and  Burghley  as  to 
bringing  the  war  to  an  end,  or  above  all  meddle  with  the 
dangerous  arcana  of  the  succession  problem.  Least  of  all 
could  you  do  this,  if  you  were  in  a  company  which,  since 
the  Queen's  men  were  never  in  London,  had  practically 

1  T.L.S*  for  28  March  1929. 
F2 


68  SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY       Chap.  Ill 

become  an  official  part  of  the  royal  household  with  a 
privileged  and  remunerative  position,  the  preservation 
of  which  depended  entirely  on  the  avoidance  of  offence. 
I  do  not  know  what  the  topical  theorists  suppose  that  the 
censorship  was  about.  They  have  a  dilemma  to  face. 
Either  the  portraits  must  have  been  so  veiled  as  to  be 
unrecognizable,  alike  to  the  naked  Elizabethan  eye  and 
through  the  microscope  of  modern  research.  Or  alterna- 
tively the  playwright  would  have  tasted  the  Marshalsea 
and  the  players  would  have  gone  to  pad  the  hoof  in  the 
provinces. 

Essex  had  a  popularity  which  failed  him  lamentably 
when  the  critical  moment  came;  and  of  this  there  is  an 
echo  in  a  chorus  to  Henry  7.  The  theorists,  however, 
assume  that  Shakespeare  was  linked  to  his  fortunes 

Essex  led  to  his  ruin.  And  the  disaster  is  sometimes  held 
to  account  for  the  critical  attitude  to  society  which  be- 
comes apparent  in  Hamlet.  How  far  Shakespeare's  rela- 
tions with  Southampton  outlasted  the  early  dedications  is 
very  uncertain.  The  only  external  fact  which  might  con- 
nect them  is  a  letter  of  1599  from  Lady  Southampton  to 
her  husband  in  Ireland,  in  which  she  jests  on  the  birth  of 
a  son  to  Sir  John  Falstaff  and  Dame  Pintpot.1  It  is  most 
unlikely  that  by  Sir  John  Falstaff  she  meant  Shakespeare 
himself.  There  are  the  Sonnets,  and  Southampton  has  been 
very  generally  accepted  as  the  friend  to  whom,  over  a  long 
period  of  years,  many  of  these  were  written.  I  am  quite 
sceptical  about  it.  The  identity  of  the  friend  may  have 
eluded  us.  But  if  we  are  to  find  him  in  a  known  patron 
of  Shakespeare,  some  at  least  of  the  facts  point  to  William 
Lord  Herbert,  afterwards  Earl  of  Pembroke,  rather  than 
to  Southampton.  The  earlier  supporters  of  this  identi- 
fication did  not  get  all  the  evidence.2  And  although 
Southampton  was  still  alive  when  the  First  Folio  was  pub- 
lished, it  was  to  Pembroke  and  his  brother  that  Heminges 
and^Condell  dedicated  it.  If  Shakespeare  was  indeed 
writing  for  the  company  of  Pembroke's  father  in  1592-3, 

1  App.  B,  no.  xviii.  a  Cf.  p.  $66f 


Chap.  Ill       SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY  69 

he  may  already  have  been  in  touch  with  the  Herberts,  and 
a  projected  marriage  in  1595  between  the  son  and  Eliza- 
beth Carey,  granddaughter  of  the  first  and  daughter  of 
the  second  Lord  Hunsdon,  would  be  an  adequate  explana- 
tion for  the  earliest  sonnets.  Elizabeth  Carey  ultimately 
married  Sir  Thomas  Berkeley,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that 
Midsummer-Night's  Dream  celebrated  the  occasion.  It  is 
reasonable  to  assume  that  the  services  of  players  to  the 
lords  of  their  companies  were  not  merely  nominal. 

The  only  fellow-poet  to  whom  Shakespeare  directly 
refers  in  his  plays  is  Marlowe: 1 

Dead  shepherd,  now  I  find  thy  saw  of  might, 
Whoever  loved,  that  loved  not  at  first  sight? 

His  relations  to  others  have  been  the  subject  of  much  wild 
writing.  Probably  nobody  now  believes  that  Greene's 
attack  of  1 592  was  only  the  last  shot  of  a  five-year  pamphlet 
campaign,  or  that  Shakespeare  was  the  Post-hast  ofHistrio- 
mastix,  or  that  Ben  Jonson  pursued  him  with  malignity, 
and  made  him  the  Poet-Ape  of  his  epigrams.2  These 
fancies  have  long  gone  to  the  limbo  of  critical  aberrations. 
And  with  them  should  go  Mr.  Acheson's  theory  of  a  con- 
tinuous duel  between  Shakespeare  and  Chapman  from  Sir 
Thomas  More,  in  which  he  supposes  Shakespeare  to  have 
revised  Chapman's  work,  to  Troilus  and  Cressida?  Some 
jesting  at  Chapman  there  may  be  in  Love's  Labour  *s  Lost, 
and  if  he  was  the  rival  poet  of  the  Sonnets,  which  is  not 
assured,  Shakespeare  treated  him  there  with  a  courtesy 
touched  by  irony.  But  Mr.  Acheson's  attempt  to  trace  a 
prolonged  give  and  take  of  offence  and  retort  between  the 
writings  of  the  two  men  is  singularly  far-fetched.  There 
is  more  material  to  go  upon  with  Ben  Jonson.4  Rowe 
(1709)  had  heard  that  the  poets  were  'profess'd  friends', 
and  that  the  acquaintance  between  them  began  with  *a 
remarkable  piece  of  humanity  and  good  nature',  when 

1  As  You  Like  It,  iii.  5.  81.  A.  Acheson,  £§.,  Chapman  anJS.T.M. 

2  Simpson,  ii.  xx,  339;  W.  Gifford      (Revue   Anglo-Amtricaine,    iiL    428, 
in  Jonson's  Works  (ed.  Cunningham),      514). 

I.  brad;  cf.  Epig.  Ivi.  *  Cf.  App.  B,  no.  xxii;  App.  C, 

3  A.  Acheson,  Sh.  and  ike  Rival     nos.  iii,  vi,  vii. 
Poet  (1903),  &c.;  F.  L.  Schoell  and 


70  SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY       Chap.  Ill 

Shakespeare  commended  a  play  of  Jonson's  to  the  con- 
sideration of  his  company.1  One  would  gladly  think  that 
Shakespeare  is  the  Virgil  of  Jonson's  Poetaster. 

That,  which  he  hath  writ. 
Is  with  such  judgement,  laboured,  and  distilPd 
Through  all  the  needful  uses  of  our  lives, 
,     That  could  a  man  remember  but  his  lines, 
He  should  not  touch  at  any  serious  point, 
But  he  might  breathe  his  spirit  out  of  him. 

I  do  not  in  fact  think  that  Virgil  was  any  one  but  Virgil, 
or  that  Shakespeare  was  the  'so  happy  a  Genius'  who 
collaborated  in  the  lost  first  version  of  Sejanus.  Jonson's 
considered  judgement  of  Shakespeare  is  to  be  found  in  his 
First  Folio  lines  and  in  his  later  Timber.  It  shows  both 
admiration  for  the  poet  and  affection  for  the  man.  It  does 
not  detract  from  the  genuineness  of  the  admiration  that  it 
was  not  uncritical.  Jonson  had  a  critical  mind,  and  Shake- 
speare's way  of  writing  did  not  altogether  answer  to  his 
theory  of  what  dramatic  structure  should  be.  Therefore 
he  told  Drummond  that  Shakespeare  'wanted  Arte'.  He 
censured  a  line  in  Julius  Caesar,  which  Shakespeare  appa- 
rently altered.  He  disliked  the  solutions  of  continuity  in 
the  action  of  Henry  V.  He  thought  that  some  of  the  in- 
cidents in  the  Tempest  and  Winter's  Tale  made  'nature 
afraid',  and  that  Pericles  was  a  'mouldy  tale',  which  in  some 
respects  it  was.  Perhaps  he  found  'horror'  in  Macbeth. 
All  this  is  legitimate  criticism  by  one  poet  of  another.  And 
if  Jonson  smiled  at  Shakespeare's  'small  Latine,  and  lesse 
Greeke',  his  judgement  chimes  precisely  with  the  refer- 
ence, so  full  of  admiration  and  discriminating  kindliness, 
in  the  recently  recovered  lines  of  Francis  Beaumont:  2 

Here  I  would  let  slip, 
If  I  had  any  in  me,  scholarship, 
And  from  all  learning  keep  these  lines  as  clear, 
As  Shakespeare's  best  are,  which  our  heire  shall  hear 
Preachers  apt  to  their  auditors  to  show 
How  far  sometimes  a  mortal  man  may  go 
By  the  dim  light  of  Nature. 

*App.B,no.xliv. 


Chap.  Ill       SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY  71 

In  private  talk  Jonson  may  have  adopted  a  more  slighting 
tone  towards  his  friend's  erudition.  He. is  said  thus  to 
have  incurred  the  resentment  of  John  Hales.  But  if  he 
chaffed  Shakespeare's  assumption  of  a  motto  in  E.M.O. 
he  became  in  return,  according  to  repute,  the  mark  for 
Shakespeare's  epigrams.  Friends  need  not  spare  each 
other,  writing  in  the  same  tavern,  and  over  the  same  quart 
pot.  Is  Jonson  in  Shakespeare's  plays?  About  1599  he 
became  involved  in  the  Poetomachia.1  This  started  as  a 
quarrel  between  him  and  Marston,  and  there  is  no  reason 
to  suppose  that  Shakespeare's  was  one  of  the  'petulant 
stiles'  with  which  Jonson  complained  that  for  three  years 
he  had  been  provoked  on  every  stage.  But  while  he  was 
preparing  his  Poetaster  (1601)  against  Marston,  he  seems 
to  have  learnt  of  the  intended  production  by  the  Chamber- 
lain's men  of  Dekker's  Satiromastix.  Dekker,  therefore,  as 
well  as  Marston,  appears  in  Poetaster,  together  with  a 
company  of  players,  whose  personalities  are  treated  in  no 
friendly  spirit.  There  are  doubtless  some  hits  at  the 
Chamberlain's  men  here.  Professor  Baldwin,  with  much 
ingenuity  and  little  to  go  upon,  has  endeavoured  to  dis- 
tribute the  parts.*  But  even  he  does  not  find  Shakespeare, 
and  if  Jonson  made  any  allusion  to  Shakespeare  in  this 
controversy,  it  can  only  be  in  the  Apologetical  Dialogue 
written  after  the  appearance  of  Satiromastix  later  in  1601. 
Here,  after  defending  his  'taxation'  of  some  of  the  players, 
he  adds: 

Onely  amongst  them,  I  am  sorry  for 
Some  better  natures,  by  the  rest  so  drawne, 
To  run  in  that  vile  line. 

A  contemporary  notice  does,  however,  connect  Shake- 
speare's name  with  the  Poetomachia.  In  3  Parnassus,  a 
Cambridge  play,  probably  produced  in  the  winter  of 
1 60 1-2,  William  Kempe,  talking  of  academic  writers,  is 
made  to  say, 

'Why  heres  our  fellow  Shakespeare  puts  them  all  downe,  ay  and 
Ben  Jonson  too,   O  that  Ben  Jonson  is  a  pestilent  fellow,  he 
1  Etiz.  Stage,  i.  381;  iii.  293,  365,  428.  a  Baldwin  232. 


72  SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY       Chap.  Ill 

brought  up  Horace  giving  the  Poets  a  pill,  but  our  fellow  Shake- 
speare hath  given  him  a  purge  that  made  him  beray  his  credit.' ' 

The  'pilP  is  in  Poetaster,  the  'purge'  has  been  sought  in 
various  plays  of  Shakespeare.  It  is  often  taken  to  be  the 
description  of  Ajax  in  Troilus  and  Cressida,  i.  2.  19,  which 
seems  unnecessarily  elaborate  for  its  place,  refers  to 
'humours',  and  has  not  much  relation  to  the  character  of 
Ajax  as  depicted  in  the  play.  Professor  Sarrazin  argued 
at  length  for  Nym  in  Henry  Fand  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor, 
and  the  suggestion  has  been  revived  by  Sir  Arthur  Quiller- 
Couch.2  Mr.  Arthur  Gray  has  recently  suggested  the 
censorious  and  libertine  Jaques  ofds  Tou  Like  7/.3  I  dare 
say  there  may  be  glances  at  Jonson  in  all  of  these,  parti- 
cularly in  Nym,  who  rarely  speaks  in  Henry  7,  and  never 
in  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  without  using  the  word 
humour'.  But  I  do  not  think  that  any  one  of  them  was 
the  'purge1.  All  the  plays  concerned,  except  Troilus  and 
Cressida,  are  too  early  in  date,  since  the  writer  of  3  Par- 
nassus clearly  regarded  the  'purge'  as  an  answer  to  the 
'pill'.  Probably  the  'purge*  was  Satiromastix  itself.  Horace 
is  promised  one  in  i.  2.  294,  although  there  is  none  of  a 
literal  kind  in  the  play.  The  Cambridge  writer  may  have 
thought  that  Shakespeare  was  responsible  for  it,  since  he 
introduces  Kempe  as  a  fellow  of  Burbadge  and  Shake- 
speare, although  Kempe  had  left  the  Chamberlain's  men 
in  1599,  and  Danter,  who  was  long  dead,  as  a  printer. 

Shakespeare's  success  as  a  playwright  appears  to  have 
terminated  all  other  literary  ambitions.  His  free  handling 
of  the  dramatic  form  gave  him  ample  scope  for  a  wide 
variety  of  poetic  expression.  The  narrative  poems,  if  we 
may  judge  by  the  frequency  of  allusions  to  them  and  the 
number  of  reprints,  won  an  early  and  lasting  popularity. 
But  they  had  no  successors.  The  only  occasional  verses 
which  bear  Shakespeare's  signature  are  the  set  on  The 
Turtle  and  Phoenix,  contributed  to  a  volume  in  honour  of 

1  App.  B,  no.  xx;  cf.  Etiz.  Stage,     Wilson),  xxxi. 

v,  38.  3  A.  Gray,  How  Sk.  'Purged*  Jon- 

2  J.  3d  (1904),  2135  Merry  Wives     son  (1928). 
of  Windsor  (ed.  Quiller-Couch  and 


Chap.  Ill       SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY  73 

one  Sir  John  Salisbury  in  1601.  No  dirge  for  Elizabeth 
or  paean  for  James  came  from  his  pen.  He  stood  aloof 
from  the  practice  of  commendatory  writing,  with  which 
most  of  his  contemporaries  vaunted  each  other's  wares. 
Professor  Minto  thought  that  he  found  him  in  a  sonnet 
by  'Phaeton*  prefixed  to  John  Florio's  Second  Fruits  of 
1591.  It  is  or  merit,  but  does  not  compel  a  recognition 
of  Shakespearean  authorship,  and  in  any  case  antedates 
Venus  and  Adonis.1  If  any  of  his  lyrics  are  among  the 
anonymous  work  of  the  song-books,  they  were  probably 
written  for  the  stage.  The  few  pieces  ascribed  to  him  in 
manuscript  anthologies,  like  those  in  The  Passionate  P/7- 
grimy  carry  little  authority.  The  authenticity  of  A  Lover's 
Complaint,  printed  with  the  Sonnets,  is  gravely  doubted.2 
The  Sonnets  themselves  are  an  exception.  They  continue 
the  poetic  impulse  of  the  early  work,  and  their  composition 
covers  a  period  of  three  years  and  more,  probably  from 
1595  to  1599  or  1600.  One  must  suppose  that  some  at 
least  of  them  were  originally  intended  for  publication. 
How  else  could  the  immortality  in  verse  promised  to  the 
poet's  friend  be  secured?  Shakespeare  was  known  to 
Meres  as  a  sonneteer  in  1598.  But  unless  a  volume  of 
1602  has  been  lost,  the  Sonnets  remained  in  manuscript  to 
1609,  when  they  were  printed  without  any  token  of  oyer- 
sight  by  the  author.  To  whomsoever  written,  William 
Herbert,  or  Henry  Wriothesley,  or  an  unknown,  or  a 
group  of  unknowns,  the  Sonnets  give  us  glimpses  of  a  soul- 
side  of  Shakespeare  imperfectly  revealed  by  the  plays.  A 
perturbed  spirit  is  behind  the  quiet  mask.  Here  is  a  record 
of  misplaced  and  thwarted  affections,  of  imperfections  and 
disabilities,  inseparable  perhaps  from  an  undesired  way  of 
life,  which  clog  a  mind  conscious  enough  of  its  own  power. 
Shakespeare,  the  myriad-minded,  is 

Desiring  this  man's  art  and  that  man's  scope. 

He  is  tired  of  life  before  his  time,  conscious  of  'tann'd 
antiquity'  in  the  full  tide  of  years,  brooding  on  the  decay  of 
beauty  and  the  passing  of  friends,  letting  his  imagination 

'  Cf.  p.  555.  a  <*•  P-  55°- 


74  SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY      Chap.  Ill 

play  freely  around  thoughts  of  death.    One  must  not 
take  too  literally  a  way  of  writing  which  has  some  elements 
of  traditional  convention  in  it,  or  attempt  to  construct  a 
complete  personality  from  the  transient  utterances  of  in- 
dividual moods.  But  when  all  such  allowance  is  made,  there 
is  some  disharmony  between  the  tone  of  the  Sonnets  and 
that  of  the  vivid  comedies,  abundant  in  their  rendering  of 
the  surface  of  things,  which  were  contemporary  with  them. 
They  lead  up  more  naturally  to  the  questionings  of  Ham- 
let and  to  the  distasted  essays  in  disillusion  which  followed. 
A  reasonable  measure  of  worldly  prosperity  came  to 
Shakespeare.  We  do  not  know  that  he  ever  let  go  alto- 
gether of  Stratford.    The  boy  Hamnet  died  in   1596. 
Sentiment  would  trace  a  reflection  of  the  event  in  the  sym- 
pathetic treatment  of  Arthur  in  King  John,  which  chrono- 
logy at  least  does  not  forbid.   The  two  daughters,  Susanna 
and  Judith,  remained.  There  had  been  no  more  children. 
About  1596  Shakespeare  may  have  begun  to  pick  up  the 
broken  threads  of  family  life.  His  father  survived  to  1 60 1 . 
No  will  or  administration  is  known,  but  it  is  evident  that 
the  Henley  St.  houses,  all  that  was  left  of  John's  property, 
came  into  his  son's  hands,  subject  no  doubt  to  a  life- 
interest  for  the  widow.1  Probably  it  was  the  poet's  money 
which  financed  an  unsuccessful  attempt  of  1597  to  recover 
the  lost  Arden  inheritance  at  Wilmcote,  as  well  as  an 
application  to  the  Heralds1  Office  in  1596  for  a  grant  of 
family  arms,  which  John  had  contemplated  and  dropped 
when  he  was  bailiff  of  Stratford  in  1 568-9,2  The  grant 
was  duly  made,  and  the  arms  Or  on  a  bend  sable  a  spear 
of  the  first  steeled  argent,  with  a  falcon  bearing  a  spear  as 
the  crest,  adorn  the  poet's  monument.  In  1599  there  was 
a  second  application  for  leave  to  impale  the  arms  of  Arden, 
but  if  this  grant  too  was  made,  neither  Shakespeare  nor 
his  descendants  appear  to  have  availed  themselves  of  it. 
The  responsible  heralds  incurred  some  criticism  for  as- 
signing arms  to  a  person  of  base  degree,  and  defended 
themselves  by  reciting  John's  substantial  position  and  civic 
dignities.  In  1597  Shakespeare  established  himself  in  his 

«  App.  A,  nos.  iii,  xxiv.  a  App.  A>  no 


Chap.  Ill       SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY  75 

native  town  through  the  purchase3  for  £60  if  the  sum 
named  in  the  fine  can  be  trusted,  of  the  substantial  free- 
hold house  of  New  Place.1  This  stood  opposite  the  Gild 
Chapel,  at  the  angle  formed  by  Chapel  St.  and  Chapel 
Lane,  and  had  a  large  garden.  It  had  been  built  at  the 
end  of  the  fifteenth  century  by  Sir  Hugh  Clopton,  and  had 
passed  by  purchase  through  other  hands.  There  was  a 
curious  hitch  in  the  transaction  with  Shakespeare.  William 
Underbill,  the  vendor,  was  poisoned  by  his  son  Fulke,  and 
Shakespeare  had  to  secure  warranty  through  a  fresh  fine 
with  another  son  Hercules,  to  whom  the  felon's  estate  had 
been  granted.  About  1 540  New  Place  was  described  as  *a 
praty  howse  of  brike  and  tymbar'.  But  in  1 549  it  was  out 
of  repair,  and  that  Shakespeare  may  have  had  to  put  it  in 
order  is  suggested  by  the  sale  of  a  load  of  stone  from  him 
or  his  father  to  the  Stratford  corporation  in  1598.  In  the 
same  year  he  had  in  Stratford  a  store  of  ten  quarters  of 
malt,  a  commodity  in  which  the  well-to-do  inhabitants  of 
the  town  largely  dealt,  somewhat  to  the  impoverishment 
of  their  neighbours  in  a  time  of  dearth.2  In  1598  also  the 
correspondence  of  Richard  Quiney  of  Stratford  shows 
Shakespeare  in  friendly  relations  with  a  fellow-townsman, 
who  applied  to  him  for  a  loan  to  meet  expenses  in  London, 
and  at  the  same  time  in  search  of  an  investment.3  Oldys 
has  a  stage  tradition  that  he  drew  Falstaff  from  a  land- 
owner who  had  refused  to  sell  to  him.*  He  ultimately,  in 
1602,  bought  for  £320  from  the  local  family  of  Combe 
a  freehold  property  in  the  open  manorial  fields  of  Old 
Stratford,  extending  to  a  hundred  and  seven  acres  of 
arable  land,  with  twenty  acres  of  pasture  and  rights  of 
common.5  This  he  probably  let  for  tillage  by  the  exist- 
ing tenant  occupiers.  And  in  the  same  year  he  acquired, 
for  the  use  of  his  gardener,  one  may  suppose,  a  cottage  in 
Chapel  Lane,  which  was  copyhold  of  the  manor  of  Row- 
ington.6  He  cannot  as  yet  have  dwelt  much  at  New  Place, 
although  he  is  not  known  to  have  leased  it.  In  London 

1  App.  A,  no.  xi.  *  App.  C,  no.  xxxiv. 

*  App.  A,  no.  xii.  5  App.  A,  no.  xiv. 

3  App.  A,  no.  xiii.  6  App.  A,  no.  xv. 


76  SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY      Chap.  Ill 

he  is  traceable  in  1597  as  living  in  St.  Helen's,  Bishops- 
gate,  where,  like  other  poets,  he  neglected  to  pay  his  taxes. 
But  by  the  end  of  1  599  he  had  moved  to  the  liberty  of  the 
Clink  on  the  Surrey  Bankside.1  In  both  places  he  would 
have  been  in  close  proximity  to  his  playhouse,  at  first  the 
Theatre  or  Curtain,  then  the  Globe. 

So  Shakespeare  stood,  when  Elizabeth  made  way  for 
James.  He  too,  no  less  than  his  predecessor,  was  'taken', 
according  to  Ben  Jonson,  with  the  flights  of  the  'Swan  of 
Avon'  ;  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  Shakespeare 
remained  a.  persona  grata  after  the  change  of  reign.  Several 
of  his  older  plays  were  chosen  to  appear  with  new  ones  at 
the  court  performances  of  1604-5.  *  am  not  so  sure  as 
was  Sir  Sidney  Lee  that  the  letter,  said  to  have  been  once 
at  Wilton,  in  which  Lady  Pembroke  invited  the  king  to  see 
a  representation  of  As  Tou  Like  If  in  1  603,  is  to  be  put  down 
as  ^  mythical.  It  certainly  cannot  now  be  found,  but  its 
existence  was  recorded  by  a  competent  historian  in  1  8  6$.2 
An  anonymous  writer  about  1709  speaks  of  an  'amicable' 
letter,  already  also  lost,  but  once  in  Sir  William  Davenant's 
hands,  from  James  to  the  poet  himself.s  Commentators 
have  not  refrained  from  guessing  that  it  was  in  acknow- 
ledgement of  the  honour  paid  to  the  new  royal  house  in 
Macbeth. 

The  status  Q{  the  former  Lord  Chamberlain's  men  suf- 
fered no  diminution  under  James.  On  the  contrary  it  was 
enhanced.  They  now  became  King's  men  and  sworn 
officers  of  the  royal  household  as  Grooms  of  the  Chamber 
in  ordinary  without  fee.*  Here  the  oversight  of  them  still 
rested  with  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  no  longer  Lord  Huns- 
don,  who  retired  early  in  the  reign  and  died  shortly  after, 
but  successively  Thomas  Howard,  Earl  of  Suffolk  (  1  603- 
14),  Robert  Carr,  Earl  of  Somerset  (1614-1?),  and 
William  Herbert,  Earl  of  Pembroke  (1615-26).  The 
appointment  did  not  entail  any  regular  household  duties, 
other  than  those  of  players.  But  there  was  an  exception  in 
August  1604,  when  grooms  were  needed  to  attend  the 


.. 
App.  D,  /.*.  1603.  '  Etix.  Stage,  i.  311 


RICHARD  BURBADGE 


Chap.  Ill       SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY  77 

Constable  of  Castile,  who  came  as  an  ambassador  from 
Spain,  and  Shakespeare  with  eleven  fellows  waited  in  their 
red  liveries  during  the  peace  negotiations.  They  acted 
now  under  the  authority  of  a  royal  patent,  which  entitled 
them  to  appear  both  in  London  and  in  any  city,  university, 
or  other  town  throughout  the  realm.1  We  have  no  great 
certainty  as  to  the  playhouses  used  by  the  Chamberlain's 
men  at  the  beginning  of  their  career.2  They  had  the 
Theatre  in  1596  and  probably  from  1594,  and  they  may 
also  have  occupied  city  inns  during  the  winter  until  that 
practice  was  stopped  in  1596.  In  1598  they  were  at  the 
Curtain,  The  Theatre  in  fact  was  in  bad  repair,  and  after 
long  disputes  between  the  Burbadges  and  the  ground 
landlord,  its  timbers  were  pulled  down  and  carried  to  the 
Bankside.  Here  in  the  course  of  1599  was  opened  the 
Globe.  This  is  the  house  named  in  the  patent  to  the  King's 
men,  and  it  remained  in  their  possession  throughout.  In 
1608  they  acquired  the  lease  of  the  Blackfriars,  and  this 
they  began  to  occupy  in  the  autumn  of  1609.  Being  a 
roofed  house,  it  was  more  convenient  for  winter  per- 
formances than  the  Globe,  which  it  seems  to  have  gradually 
displaced  as  the  head-quarters  of  the  company.  The  court 
performances  under  James  were  more  frequent  than  had 
suited  the  economical  disposition  of  Elizabeth,  and  during 
1603-16  a  hundred  and  seventy-seven  fell  to  the  lot  of 
the  King's  men.  This  was  far  more  than  half  the  total 
number  given.3  But  there  were  difficulties  to  be  faced. 
The  rivalry  of  the  boys  was  continued  by  other  young 
aspirants,  and  there  were  now  generally  four  and  some* 
times  five  companies  playing  in  London.  Even  the  King's 
men  themselves  did  not  steer  quite  clear  of  troubles  with 
the  censor,  and  there  was  a  restraint  in  1608,  for  which 
they  were  not  responsible,  but  which  threatened  a  per- 
manent suppression,  and  had  to  be  bought  off  at  con- 
siderable expense.  More  serious,  however,  was  the  effect 

1  This  would  overrule  the  bar  of  cf.  T.L.S.  for  21  Feb.  to  2  May  1929. 

1593  against  performances  in  the  uni-  a  Cf.  Etiz.  Stage,  chh.  xiii,  xvi,  xvii, 

versities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  for  a  more  detailed  history  of  the  com- 

(Etix.  Stage,  ii.  113;  Dasent  xxiv.  427;  pany  and  its  houses. 

M.S.C.  i.  200)  if  it  had  been  maintained ;  3  Cf.  App.  D,  passim. 


78  SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY       Chap.  Ill 

of  plague.  The  epidemic,  from  which  London  had  been 
practically  free  for  a  decade,  broke  out  again  in  1 603.  The 
theatres  had  been  closed  in  March,  when  Elizabeth's  ill- 
ness became  dangerous,  and  hopes  of  a  season  on  the 
arrival  of  James  in  May  were  frustrated.  The  King's  men 
had  to  travel.  The  plague  had  subsided  by  the  next  spring, 
and  the  theatres  were  opened  on  April  9.  The  rest  of  the 
year  was  free  from  infection,  but  there  were  recrudescences 
in  each  of  the  next  three  summers,  and  a  worse  visitation 
in  that  of  1608,  which  lasted  to  nearly  the  end  of  1609. 
It  is  probable  that  plays  were  more  or  less  automatically 
suspended,  at  first  when  the  weekly  deaths  from  plague 
reached  thirty,  and  from  1 608  when  they  reached  forty 
over  a  rather  wider  area.  On  this  basis  there  would  have 
been  closures  during  the  greater  part  of  October  to 
December  1605,  July  to  December  1606,  July  to  Novem- 
ber 1607,  and  from  the  end  of  July  1608  to  the  end  of 
November  I6O9.1  During  all  five  years  the  King's  men 
travelled.  Theatrical  profits  must  have  been  badly  hit,  in 
spite  of  special  royal  subsidies  to  the  company,  in  1603-4 
for  their  'maintenance  and  relief,  and  in  1608-9  an^ 
1609-10  to  enable  them  to  undertake  'private  practice' 
for  the  King's  service  at  Christmas.2  Possibly  this  did  not 
exclude  the  admission  of  spectators  to  one  of  the  'private' 
theatres.  The  Whitefriars  seems  to  have  been  available  in 
1608-9,  although  we  do  not  know  that  the  King's  men 
occupied  it.  In  1609-10  they  had  the  Blackfriars.  After 
1609  Aere  was  no  serious  plague  until  1625.  But  there 
was  generally  a  little  travelling  in  the  summer. 

The  company,  in  the  strict  sense,  consisted  of 'sharers', 
who  were  bound  together  by  some  deed  of  association,  and 
divided  the  profits,  after  setting  aside  the  proportion 
allocated  to  the  owners  of  the  playhouse,  and  meeting  the 
current  expenses.*  But  there  were  also  hired  servants, 
some  of  whom  may  have  been  primarily  actors,  while 
others  were  musicians,  and  others  again  stage  attendants. 

'  Ofe.  Stage,  iv.  345?  F-  P.  Wilson^         »  EKx.  Stage,  iv.  168,  175,  I76. 
The  Plague  <*  ShaketpearS*  Limdm         3  Cf.  App!  A,  no.  vii,  and  jfffe. 
(X9*7)-  Stage,  ch.  xi. 


PLATE  VIII 


WILLIAM  SLY 


Chap.  Ill       SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY  79 

We  hear  of  the  stage-keeper,  the  tireman,  and  the  book- 
keeper or  prompter,  who  was  an  important  personage.1 
Probably  all,  except  the  book-keeper,  were  available  upon 
occasion  to  take  minor  parts.  There  were  also  boys,  who 
took  the  female  parts.  They  seem  to  have  been  bound, 
perhaps  for  three  years,  to  individual  sharers,  who  under- 
took to  give  them  training.2  The  names  of  only  a  few  of 
the  hired  men  and  boys  have  come  down  to  us,  but  of  the 
sharers  it  seems  possible,  from  patents  and  other  official 
documents,  from  wills,  and  from  actor-lists  printed  with 
plays,  to  construct  a  fairly  continuous  chronicle  for  the 
period  of  Shakespeare's  career.3  The  First  Folio  itself 
gives  us  the  names  of  twenty-six  Trincipall  Actors  in  all 
these  Playes',  and  as  twenty-four  of  them  certainly  became 
sharers,  it  is  likely  that  they  all  did.  Discrepancies  with 
other  records,  however,  make  it  difficult  to  regard  the 
order  of  this  list  as  that  of  seniority  in  the  company.  The 
patent  of  1 603  shows  eight  sharers,  William  Shakespeare, 
Richard  Burbadge,  John  Heminges,  Augustine  Phillips, 
Henry  Condell,  William  Sly,  Richard  Cowley,  and  Robert 
Armin.  There  are  nine  names  in  the  patent,  but  Lawrence 
Fletcher,  who  heads  the  list,  had  already  been  'comediane 
serviture'  to  James  in  Scotland,  and  it  is  probable  that  his 
position  was  only  honorific,  and  that,  although  appointed 
a  groom  of  the  chamber,  he  did  not  become  a  sharer. 
Shakespeare  and  Burbadge  stand  first  in  the  Folio  list,  and 
are  followed  by  Heminges,  Phillips,  William  Kempe, 
Thomas  Pope,  and  George  Bryan.  These  five  had  been 
of  Alleyn's  company.  We  do  not  know  the  number  of 
sharers  in  the  Chamberlain's  company;  it  may  already 
have  been  eight.  Cowley  was  a  sharer  by  1601.  On  the 
other  hand  Kempe,  Pope,  and  Bryan  had  dropped  out  by 
1603.  Bryan  was  then  an  ordinary  groom  of  the  chamber 
with  household  duties.  Kempe  left  the  company  early  in 
1599  and  was  replaced  then  or  a  little  later  by  Armin.-* 

x  Cf.  p.  105;  vol.  ii,  p.  80.  Jester  (M.L.N.  xxxix.  447),  suggests 

*  Cf.  vol.  ii,  p.  82.  that,  as  'Clonnico  de  Curtanio'  is  on 
a  Cf.  vol.  ii,  p.  71.  the  t.ps.  of  two  pamphlets  of  1600  to 

*  T.    W.    Baldwin,    Shakespeare's  be  ascribed  to  Armin  (£//*.  Stage,  iii. 


80  SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY      Chap.  Ill 

The  dates  at  which  Condell  and  Sly  became  sharers  are 
uncertain;  they  were  'principal  comedians'  in  1598.    So 
were  Christopher  Beeston  and  John  Duke.  But  these  are 
not  in  the  Folio  list,  and  by  1602  they  and  Kempe,  who 
had  travelled  in  the  interval,  had  joined  the  Earl  of 
Worcester's  men*  They  may  never  have  become  sharers 
of  the  Chamberlain's,    Conceivably  they  did,  but  left  as 
a  result  of  some  disagreement,  which  also  led  to  the  omis- 
sion of  their  names  from  the  Folio  list.1   The  patent  of 
1603,  therefore,  seems  to  represent  the  company  much  as 
it  had  stood  in  the  later  Elizabethan  days  and  to  a  great 
extent  from  1594  onwards.  Its  terms  leave  room  for  the 
admission  of  fresh  'associates',  who  were  doubtless  sworn 
of  the  Chamber  as  they  joined.   In  the  summer  of  1 604 
the  number  of  grooms  was  increased  to  twelve.   This  is 
still  the  number  in  a  patent  of  1619;  by  1625  one  more 
had  been  added.   Two  of  the  new  places  of  1604  were 
probably  filled  by  John  Lowin  and  Alexander  Cooke,  who 
were  already  principal  actors  in  1603.   I  conjecture  that 
the  third  fell  to  Samuel  Crosse,  of  whom  nothing  is  known 
outside  the  Folio  list.   He  probably  died  almost  at  once 
and  was  replaced  by  Nicholas  Tooley;  one  must  expect 
early  deaths  in  plague-time.  The  death  of  Phillips  in  1 605 
left  room  for  Samuel  Gilburne;  the  deaths  of  Sly  and 
Fletcher  in  1608  for  William  Ostler  and  John  Under- 
wood. About  the  same  time  William  Eccleston  and  pos- 
sibly Nathan  Field  were  with  the  company,  but  not  at  this 
date  as  sharers,  since  they  are  soon  found  elsewhere,  and 
rejoined  the  King's  as  sharers  later.  Of  Gilburne  no  more 
is  heard.  Cooke  and  Ostler  died  in  1 6 14,  Armin  in  1 6 1 5, 
Shakespeare  in  1 6 1 6,  and  Cowley  in  1 6 1 9,  Gilburne  was 
probably  succeeded,  not  later  than   1611,  by  Robert 
Gough,  and  the  other  five  respectively  by  Eccleston, 
Robert  Benfield,  John  Shank,  Field,  and  Richard  Robin- 
son. The  patent  of  1619  gives  the  names  thus  arrived  at, 

300),  he  must  have  been  there  with  and  one  at  least  seems  to  have  been 

some  other  company  after  the  Cham-  -written  in  1599. 
berlain's  left  for  the  Globe  in  1599.         *  Cf.  vol.  ii,  p.  79.    Is  it  possible 

^But  the  pamphlets  are  unregistered,  that  they  sold  the  company's  plays  ? 


PLATE  IX 


JOHN  LOWIN 


Chap.  Ill       SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY  81 

and  here  Burbadge,  Heminges,  and  Condell  are  the  only 
survivors  of  the  old  Chamberlain's  men.  And  while  it  was 
passing  through  its  stages,  Burbadge,  long  the  histrionic 
mainstay  of  the  company,  died.  His  place  was  taken  by 
Joseph  Taylor,  and  that  of  Field,  who  died  in  1 6 1 9-20,  by 
John  Rice.  His  is  the  last  name  in  the  Folio  list.  It  is 
clear  that  the  company  was  recruited  in  two  ways;  partly 
by  taking  in  some  of  its  own  hired  men  and  boys,  partly  by 
enlisting  the  most  talented  actors  available  from  outside, 
some  of  whom  had  been  trained  as  boys  in  the  private 
theatres.  Armin,  Lowin,  Ostler,  Underwood,  Eccleston, 
Benfield,  Shank,  Field,  and  Taylor  all  came  from  other 
companies.  Gilburne,  Robinson,  and  Rice  had  been  boys 
with  the  King's;  Gough,  Tooley,  and  Cooke  either  boys  or 
hired  men.  It  is  possible  that  these  three  and  also  Condell 
and  Beeston  were  with  the  Alleyn  company,  as  Sly,  Cowley, 
and  Duke  certainly  were,  although  not  as  sharers.  The 
cast  of  Seven  Deadly  Sins  has  a  Harry  and  a  Kit,  and 
a  Ro.  Go,,  a  Nick,  and  a  Saunder,  who  were  boys.  But 
it  is  not  safe  to  rely  very  much  upon  personal  names.1 

A  distinction  must  be  drawn  amongst  the  sharers  them- 
selves. Some  of  them  were  also  'housekeepers',  having 
acquired  an  interest  in  the  ownership  of  the  Globe  or  the 
Blackfriars  or  of  both  houses.  One  of  these  was  Shake- 
speare. When  the  Globe  was  built  in  1599,  Burbadge  and 
his  brother  Cuthbert,  who  seem  to  have  had  an  option  on 
the  site  from  the  ground  landlord,  kept  a  half-interest  for 
themselves  and  portioned  the  other  half  among  Shake- 
speare, Phillips,  Pope,  Heminges,  and  Kempe.  The 
housekeepers  were  responsible,  perhaps  for  the  erection, 
and  certainly  for  the  maintenance,  of  the  fabric,  and 
divided  the  proportion  of  takings  paid  over  by  the  body 
of  sharers  as  rent.  Similarly  when  a  lease  of  the  Black- 
friars was  surrendered  to  Burbadge  by  the  Queen's  Revels 
in  1608,  he  made  new  ones,  under  which  Shakespeare, 
Heminges,  Condell,  and  Sly  each  received  an  interest. 
Both  at  the  Globe  and  the  Blackfriars  the  holdings  were 
redistributed  from  time  to  time,  as  housekeepers  went  out 

»  Cf.p-44- 

3142.*  G 


82  SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY       Chap.  Ill 

or  it  was  desired  to  admit  additional  ones,  and  conse- 
quently the  value  of  Shakespeare's  interests  fluctuated. 
We  do  not  know  how  long  he  retained  them.  The 
tenancies  were  'in  common',  and  therefore  alienable  to 
persons  who  were  not  members  of  the  company.  But  they 
do  not  seem  to  have  passed  under  his  will,  and  therefore 
he  may  have  parted  with  them  before  his  death;  that  of 
the  Globe  very  likely  in  1 6 1 3,  when  the  fire  made  a  heavy 
expenditure  on  rebuilding  inevitable.1 

Analysis  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  with  an  eye  to  the  pos- 
sibilities of  doubling  parts,  shows  that,  as  indeed  might 
have  been  taken  for  granted,  they  were  within  the  compass 
of  the  company.2  The  practice  of  doubling  certainly 
existed;  it  is  not  necessary  to  assume  that  it  was  always 
carried  to  the  full  extent  theoretically  feasible,  or  on  the 
other  hand  that  every  regular  actor  in  the  company  per- 
formed in  every  play.  The  number  of  persons  described 
in  London  parish  registers  as  players  suggests  that  there 
must  always  have  been  some  'resting',  who  could  be  called 
upon  for  occasional  jobs,  if  need  arose.  From  three  to  five 
boys  would  normally  have  been  sufficient  for  the  female 
parts;  some  special  arrangement  may  have  been  required 
for  Midsummer-Night's  Dream  and  Merry  Wives  of  Wind- 
sor. When  the  company  was  travelling,  there  would  be 
advantages  in  keeping  down  the  'personnel^  but  of  course 
the  less  heavily  parted  plays  could  be  chosen.  Some  texts, 
however,  show  indications  of  cuts,  with  the  apparent 
object  of  reducing  the  cast.3  Professor  Baldwin  has  some 
ingenious  speculations  as  to  the  'lines'  or  types  of  part 
provided  for  each  of  the  principal  men  and  boy  actors. 
I  think  that  they  are  vitiated  by  a  misconception  as  to  the 
nature  of  theatrical  apprenticeship,  by  a  chronology  which 
I  believe  to  be  erroneous,  and  still  more  perhaps  by  the 
complete  absence  of  any  data  adequate  to  support  so 
elaborate  a  superstructure.  The  printed  actor-lists,  of 
which  there  are  none  for  Shakespeare's  plays,  rarely  allot 
parts.  The  ascriptions  of  Restoration  writers  naturally 
relate  to  the  Caroline  period.  Thus  John  Downes  tells  us 

1  Cf.  App.  A,  no.  vii.  *  Cf.  vol.  ii,  p.  86.  3  Cf.  pp.  229,  235. 


PLATE  X 


NATHAN  FIELD 


Chap.  Ill       SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY  83 

that  Taylor  acted  Hamlet  and  Lowin  Henry  VIII  and 
that  both  had  their  instructions  from  Shakespeare  himself. 
This  cannot  be  true  of  Taylor,  who  only  joined  the  com- 
pany after  Shakespeare's  death.  It  might  be  of  Lowin, 
but  Falstaff,  which  James  Wright  gives  him,  was  certainly 
not  his  from  the  beginning.  Burbadge  was  doubtless  the 
leading  actor  in  his  lifetime.  We  know  that  he  did 
Richard  III,  Lear,  Othello,  'young  Hamlett',  'ould  Heir- 
onymoe',  probably  in  The  Spanish  Tragedy,  Ferdinand  in 
The  Duchess  ofMalfi>  and  this  list,  together  with  the  general 
descriptions  of  him,  suggests  a  versatility  which  is  charac- 
teristic of  'repertory'  companies  and  makes  any  assign- 
ment of 'lines'  very  problematic.  Lowin  probably  became 
Burbadge's  chief  support  in  later  days.  The  Fool  was  a 
familiar  figure  in  every  theatre,  and  we  can  trace  the  suc- 
cession of  Kempe,  Armin,  and  Shank,  and  even  note  a 
change  of  method,  when  Kempe's  serving-men  fools  gave 
place  to  Armin's  court  fools.  Pope  is  spoken  of  as  a  clown. 
Heminges  seems  to  have  followed  Phillips  as  the  business 
manager  of  the  company.  He  is  described  as  'stuttering' 
in  1613  and  appears  in  no  actor-list  after  161 1.  The  will 
of  Phillips  suggests  that  he  was  primarily  a  musician.  So 
may  have  been  Cowley,  whose  name  is  not  in  the  actor- 
lists  at  all,  although  stage-directions  show  that  he  played 
Verges  to  Kempe's  Dogberry.  He  had  appeared  as  a 
musician  in  Seven  Deadly  Sins.  It  is  likely  enough  that 
the  boys  were  paired,  to  give  a  contrast  of  tall  and  short, 
dark  and  fair,  lively  and  tender  among  the  women.  We 
must  assume  that  Shakespeare,  as  a  practical  playwright, 
had  some  regard  in  plotting  his  plays  to  the  material 
available  for  their  interpretation.  But  I  cannot  believe 
with  Professor  Baldwin  that  he  meticulously  fitted  the  ages 
and  complexions  of  his  characters  to  those  of  their  in- 
tended representatives.  Here  the  argument  as  to  a  practi- 
cal playwright  tells  the  other  way.  He  would  know  that 
a  repertory  meant  the  periodical  revival  of  plays,  with 
changes  in  the  cast  and  changes  of  age.  And  he  would 
not  be  unfamiliar  with  the  uses  of 'make-up'.  As  to  Shake- 
speare's own  acting,  we  have  little  to  go  upon,  except  late 

G  2 


84  SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY       Chap.  Ill 

and  rather  conflicting  hints  through  stage  tradition.  He 
'did  act  exceedingly  well'  says  Aubrey.  But  Rowe  got  the 
impression  that  he  was  no  'extraordinary*  actor,  and  that  'the 
top  of  his  performance  was  the  Ghost  in  his  own  Hamlet*. 
A  story,  dubious  in  its  details,  describes  him  as  playing 
the  very  minor  part  of  Adam  in  As  Tou  Like  It.1  Chettle, 
desiring  to  be  courteous,  reported  him  as  'exelent  in  the 
qualitie  he  professes',  and  'qualitie'  is  a  term  more  than 
once  applied  to  the  occupation  of  an  actor.  Davies  of 
Hereford  speaks  of  his  kingly  parts.*  It  is  hazardous  to 
infer  that  he  played  the  king  in  Peele's  Edward  I  from 
the  lines  (761-2): 

Shake  thy  speres  in  honour  of  his  name, 
Vnder  whose  roialtie  thou  wearst  the  same. 

We  may  gather  from  Richard  III  and  again  from  Hamlet 
that  he  was  interested  in  the  technique  of  his  profession, 
and  perhaps  from  the  Sonnets  that  he  found  its  practice 
irksome.3  He,  too,  drops  out  of  the  actor-lists  after  E.M.I. 
(1598)  and  Sejanus  (i  603),  and  it  may  be  that  after  a  time 
his  plays,  together,  perhaps,  with  the  oversight  of  their 
production,  were  accepted  as  a  sufficient  return  for  his 
share  in  the  company.  If  so,  he  presumably  did  not  get 
any  special  payment  for  them,  although  at  an  earlier  date 
he  may,  as  Oldys  apparently  learnt,  have  received  £5  for 
Hamlet.  I  feel  sure  that  Sir  Sidney  Lee  has  much  over- 
estimated his  theatrical  income  at  more  than  £700.  The 
evidence  is  complicated,  but  I  do  not  see  how,  as  sharer 
and  housekeeper,  he  can  ever  have  earned  more,  even  in 
the  best  years,  than  about  ^200.  This  of  course  would 
make  him  quite  well-to-do  by  Jacobean  standards.4 

We  may  think,  then,  of  Shakespeare,  early  in  the  reign 
of  James,  as  still  making  his  head-quarters  in  London,  but 
more  free  than  of  old  tor  occasional  sojourn  in  Stratford. 
Here  he  brought  small  actions  in  the  Court  of  Record 
against  one  Phillip  Rogers  for  the  value  of  malt  supplied 
and  for  a  money  debt  in  1604,  and  against  one  John 
Addenbroke  and  his  surety  Thomas  Horneby  for  a  money 

1  App.  C,  nos.  xiii,  XSY,  xxriv,  xliv.         3  Cf .  p.  560. 

*  App,  B,  no.  xxvii.  *  cf.  App.  A,  no.  vii. 


Chap.  Ill       SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY  85 

debt  in  1608— 9. l  And  here  he  added  to  his  investments 
in  1605  by  purchasing  for  ^440  the  lease  of  a  parcel  of 
local  tithes  which  had  once  belonged  to  the  Stratford  col- 
lege.2 Malone  thought  he  had  evidence,  not  now  forth- 
coming, that  Shakespeare's  London  abode  was  still  on  the 
Southwark  Bankside  in  i6o8.3  Professor  Wallace,  how- 
ever, discovered  a  lawsuit  which  showed  that  in  1604  he 
was  lodging  in  the  house  of  Christopher  Mountjoy,  a 
Huguenot  tire-maker,  in  Cripplegate  ward,  and  became  in- 
volved in  the  family  affairs  of  his  landlord.4  Some  informa- 
tion obtained  by  Aubrey  from  the  actor  William  Beeston, 
a  son  of  Christopher,  indicates  that  at  some  time  he  also 
lived  in  Shoreditch.s  Aubrey  tells  also  of  annual  visits  to 
Stratford,  of  the  humour  of  Dogberry  picked  up  from  a 
constable  at  Grendon,  which  was  in  fact  out  of  the  road, 
and  of  lodging  in  Oxford  at  the  house  of  John  Davenant, 
a  vintner  who  kept  a  tavern  afterwards  known  as  the 
Crown.  This  must  have  been  much  later  than  the  days  of 
Dogberry.  Davenant  is  not  known  to  have  had  the  tavern 
before  1613,  although  he  may  have  had  it  in  1 60 1 .  A  tavern 
was  not  normally  a  place  for  the  reception  of  travellers,  and 
if  Shakespeare  did  not  really  lodge  at  the  adjoining  Cross 
inn,  which  seems  also  to  have  been  at  one  time  in  Davenant's 
hands,  he  must  have  been  a  private  guest.  The  house 
still  stands  in  the  Cornmarket  St.,  and  we  may,  if  we  like, 
fancy  Shakespeare  occupying  a  room  in  which  some  inter- 
esting mural  decoration  of  the  sixteenth  century  has  recently 
been  uncovered.6  A  gloss  on  the  story,  over  which  Aubrey 
hesitated,  made  Shakespeare  the  father  of  Sir  William 
Davenant,  born  in  1606.  It  has  not  much  authority  and 
may  owe  something  to  Davenant's  willingness  to  be  sus- 
pected of  more  than  a  literary  affiliation  to  the  greater  poet.7 
The  temper  of  Hamlet  and  Troths  and  CressiJa'lezds 
up,  naturally  enough,  to  the  long  unrolling  of  the  Jacobean 
tragedies.  These  are  not  without  evidence  of  mental  strain 

1  App.  A,  no.  xvi.  s  App.  C,  no.  riii. 

2  App.  A,  no.  xvii.  6  Cf.  Plate  XVI. 

3  App.  A,  no.  ix.  7  Cf.  p.  573. 

4  App.  A,  no.  x. 


86  SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY       Chap.  Ill 

and  sometimes  exhaustion.  Shakespeare's  spirit  must  have 
been  nearly  submerged  in  Lear,  and  although  the  wave 
passed,  and  he  rose  to  his  height  of  poetic  expression  in 
Antony  and  Cleopatra,  I  think  that  he  went  under  in  the 
unfinished  Timon  of  Athens.  The  chronology  of  the  plays 
becomes  difficult  at  this  point,  and  it  is  therefore  frankly 
a  conjecture  that  an  attempt  at  Timon  of  Athens  early  in 
1608  was  followed  by  a  serious  illness,  which  may  have 
been  a  nervous  breakdown,  and  on  the  other  hand  may 
have  been  merely  the  plague.  Later  in  the  year  Shake- 
speare came  to  his  part  of  Pericles  with  a  new  outlook.  In 
any  case  the  transition  from  the  tragedies  to  the  romances 
is  not  an  evolution  but  a  revolution.  There  has  been  some 
mental  process  such  as  the  psychology  of  religion  would 
call  a  conversion.  Obviously  the  philosophy  of  the  tra- 
gedies is  not  a  Christian  philosophy,  and  in  a  sense  that 
of  the  romances  is.1  Richard  Davies,  a  Gloucestershire 
clergyman  of  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century,  stated 
that  Shakespeare  'dyed  a  papist'.2  He  may  or  may  not 
have  been  misinformed,  but  I  am  not  so  certain  as  was 
Sir  Sidney  Lee  that  we  can,  without  more  ado,  'dismiss  as 
idle  gossip  the  irresponsible  report',  or  that  it  'admits  of  no 
question'  that  Shakespeare  'was  to  the  last  a  conforming 
member  of  the  Church  of  England'.a  How  did  Sir  Sidney 
know  that  Davies  was  irresponsible  or  a  gossip  ?  What  little 
is  recorded  of  him  suggests  that  he  was  a  man  of  scholarly 
attainments.  It  was  by  no  means  unusual  for  a  seventeenth- 
century  Catholic  to  be  buried  in  his  parish  church.4 

It  was  perhaps  about  this  time  that  Shakespeare's 
thoughts  began  to  turn  to  New  Place  as  a  permanent 
habitation.  If  so,  he  deferred  his  purpose  for  a  time,  since 
his  cousin  Thomas  Greene,  the  town  clerk  of  Stratford, 
who  appears  to  have  been  living  jjn  the  house,  noted  in 
connexion  with  a  transaction  of  1609  that  he  had  found 
he  could  stay  there  for  another  year.*  We  may  put  there- 
fore in  1610  the  beginning  of  Shakespeare's  final  years 

1  Cf.  Sh.:  a  Survey,  229,  241,  275,  4  Stratford  Register,  s.a.  1606, 1611, 

284,  290,  307.  1613. 

*  App.  C,  no.  xy.  *  App.  A,  no.  ri. 

*  Lee,  487. 


Chap.  Ill       SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY  87 

at  his  native  Stratford,  spent,  according  to  Rowe,  'as  all 
men  of  good  sense  will  wish  theirs  may  be,  in  ease,  retire- 
ment and  the  conversation  of  his  friends'.  Even  at  Strat- 
ford time  had  brought  some  changes.  His  elder  daughter 
Susanna  had  married  John  Hall,  a  local  physician  of  some 
note,  in  1607,  and  had  herself  a  daughter  Elizabeth. 
His  younger  daughter  Judith  was  still  unmarried.  His 
mother  had  died  in  1608.  His  brother  Edmund  had,  like 
himself,  become  an  actor  in  London,  although  not,  so  far 
as  we  know,  in  his  company,  and  his  death  in  1607  had 
followed  that  of  a  base-born  son.  Two  other  brothers, 
Gilbert  and  Richard,  were  still  alive  in  Stratford,  and  died, 
apparently  unmarried,  in  1612  and  1613  respectively. 
His  sister  Joan  had  married  William  Hart,  a  hatter,  and 
had  three  sons.1  Shakespeare's  breach  with  London  was 
not  a  complete  one.  He  still  wrote  his  plays  for  the  King's 
men.  But  the  intervals  between  them  became  longer,  and 
in  1613,  when  the  wedding  of  the  Princess  Elizabeth 
meant  a  period  of  theatrical  pressure,  he  seems  to  have 
fallen  back  upon  some  kind  of  collaboration  with  the 
younger  pen  of  John  Fletcher.  After  1613  he  wrote  no 
more.  Occasionally  he  visited  his  old  haunts.  He  was  in 
London  on  n  May  1612,  when  he  made  a  deposition 
in  Christopher  Mountjoy's  lawsuit,  and  showed  a  rather 
imperfect  memory  of  events  which  had  taken  place  eight 
years  before.2  He  was  there  in  March  1613,  when  he 
designed  an  impresa  for  Burbadge  to  paint,  and  for  Francis 
Earl  of  Rutland  to  parade  at  the  annual  Accession  tilt.3 
He  was  there  on  17  November  1614,  when  Thomas 
Greene  discussed  Stratford  business  with  him  and  his  son- 
in-law  Hall.*  And  it  was  in  London  property  that  during 
1613  he  made  his  last  investment,  buying  for  £140  and 
immediately  mortgaging  for  nearly  half  its  value  an  old 
building  in  the  Blackfriars,  which  had  once  been  a  gate- 
house to  a  lodging  for  the  Prior  of  the  Dominicans,  and 
at  later  dates  a  head-quarters,  of  Catholic  intrigue.5 

1  App.  A,  no.  L  4  App.  A,  no.  acbc. 

a  App.  A,  no.  x.  5  App.  Ay  no.  xariii. 

•  App.  A,  no.  xxii. 


88  SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY       Chap.  Ill 

But  our  imaginative  setting  for  the  last  days  of  Shake- 
speare must  be  the  open  fields  and  cool  water-meadows 
and  woodland  of  Stratford,  and  the  great  garden  of  New 
Place,  where  the  mulberries  he  had  planted  were  yet 
young.    He  seems  to  have  taken  no  part  in  municipal 
affairs.  He  made  his  contribution  to  the  expenses  of  pro- 
moting a  Bill  for  the  better  repair  of  highways,  and  gave 
hospitality  to  a  preacher  of  one  of  the  annual  sermons 
founded  by  pious  legacies.1  Tradition  and  his  will  show 
that  he  lived  upon  friendly  terms,  not  only  with  the  leading 
citizens,  but  with  well-to-do  gentry  of  the  town  and  its 
neighbourhood.2  Prominent  among  these  were  a  family 
of  Combes.3    Thomas  Combe,  whose  grandfather  had 
been  a  spoiler  of  the  monasteries  and  his  father  appa- 
rently a  Catholic,  occupied  the  mansion  of  the  dissolved 
college.    He  had  died  in  1609  and  left  two  young  sons. 
Upon  his  brother  John,  who  was  a  rich  money-lender, 
Shakespeare  is  credited  by  repute  with  exercising  his  epi- 
grammatic wit.   If  so,  a  legacy  which  he  received  under 
John's  will  of  1613  shows  that  kindly  relations  endured. 
In  1614  young  William  Combe,  who  was  a  freeholder  at 
Welcombe  on  the  Stratford  manor,  was  drawn  into  a 
scheme  for  enclosing  some  of  the  open  fields,  and  a  con- 
troversy arose,  which  disturbed  the  peace  of  Stratford  for 
some  years.  Shakespeare  had  himself  no  rights  of  common 
in  the  area  affected,  but  both  he  as  a  tithe-holder  and  the 
Corporation,  who  owned  the  reversion  of  the  tithes,  might 
suffer  loss,  if  the  enclosure  led  to  the  conversion  of  arable 
land  into  pasture.   So  far  as  Shakespeare  was  concerned, 
an  agreement  for  indemnification  was  made,  and  he  seems 
to  have  taken  no  further  interest  in  the  matter.*  If  he  had 
troubles  in  these  years,  they  were  concerned  with  his 
daughters.  Susanna  Hall  in  1613  had  to  bring  an  action 
in  the  ecclesiastical  court  for  the  protection  of  her  character 
from  a  slander  of  incontinence.*  Judith,  on  10  February 
1616,  married  Thomas  Quiney,  and  the  ceremony,  which 


'  nos-  **  3Dd-  3  APP-  A,  no.  rviii. 

App.  A,  no.  xnrj  App.  C,  nos.         «  App.  A,  no.  MX. 

*  Iv-  *  App.  A,  no.  i. 


Chap.  Ill       SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY  89 

took  place  in  a  season  prohibited  by  canon  law,  led  to  the 
subsequent  excommunication  of  the  pair.1  By  the  time 
the  sentence  was  pronounced,  the  poet  may  have  been 
already  dead.  John  Ward  tells  that  'Shakespear,  Drayton, 
and  Ben  Jhonson,  had  a  merry  meeting,  and  itt  seems 
drank  too  hard,  for  Shakespear  died  of  a  feavour  there 
contracted'.  There  is  no  reason  to  reject  this  report.  Ward 
had  been  a  student  of  medicine,  and  became  vicar  of  Strat- 
ford in  i662.2  Drayton  is  known  to  have  been  in  the  habit 
offending  his  vacations  at  'the  Muses*  quiet  port'  of 
Clifford  Chambers  near  Stratford,  where  dwelt  Sir  Henry 
Rainsford,  whose  wife  Anne  had  been  Drayton's  Idea.* 
Attempts  have  been  made  to  determine  the  precise  nature 
of  Shakespeare's  medical  history,  mainly  upon  the  basis 
of  tremors  in  the  signatures  to  his  will.*  But  the  diagnoses 
of  doctors  are  even  less  reliable  when  the  patient  is  not 
before  them  than  when  he  is.  The  will  itself  was  probably 
drafted  in  January  1616,  but  interlineated  and  partly  re- 
written later,  and  finally  signed,  without  the  formality  of 
a  fair  copy,  on  25  March.*  There  are  small  bequests  to 
the  poor,  to  various  Stratfordians,  and  to  Shakespeare's 
'fellows'  Burbadge,  Heminges,  and  Condell,  who  are  to 
buy  rings.  Thomas  Combe,  the  brother  of  William,  is 
to  have  Shakespeare's  sword.  The  widow,  amply  provided 
for  by  legal  dower  on  the  Stratford  property,  although 
that  on  the  Blackfriars  house  had  been  barred,  gets  the 
second  best  bed  by  an  interlineation.  Jo^n  Hart  is  to 
occupy  her  present  house,  which  was  ofJe  of  those  in 
Henley  St.,  for  life,  and  to  have  ^20  and  the  poet's  wearing 
apparel.  Each  of  her  three  sons  gets  £5.  Subject  to  certain 
contingencies,  Judith  Quiney  is  to  have  a  marriage  portion 
of  £150,  and  another  ^150  later.  She  is  also  to  have  a 
silver  and  gilt  bowl.  The  rest  of  the  plate  is  for  Elizabeth 
Hall ;  the  other  chattels  and  the  leases  for  her  parents.  The 
real  property  in  Stratford  and  London  is  entailed  succes- 
sively upon  Susanna  and  her  heirs  male,  Elizabeth  and 

1  Ibid.  *  Cf.  p.  507. 

*  App.  C,  no.  ix.  *  App.  A,  no.  xriv. 

3  O.  Elton,  MichaelDrcyton,  10, 1 28. 


90  SHAKESPEARE  AND  &IS  COMPANY      Chap.  Ill 

her  heirs  male,  Judith  and  her  heirs  male,  with  remainder 
to  the  poet's  right  heirs. 

Death  took  place  on  April  23.    The  little  that  was 
mortal  of  Shakespeare  lies  under  the  chancel  of  Stratford 
church.     A  doggerel  curse  on  the  stone  above,  locally 
believed  to  be  from  his  own  pen,  has  fortunately  prevented 
exhumation.   From  the  chancel  wall  a  bust  by  Gheerart 
Janssen  watches  quietly.  Above  is  the  coat  of  arms ;  below 
a  laudatory  inscription.   The  face  is  full  and  heavy,  with 
a  dome-like  head;  the  modelling  may  have  been  from  a 
mask.  The  present  colouring  dates  from  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  as  tor  some  time  ^before  that  the 
bust  was  whitewashed,  it  cannot  be  relied  upon.1    The 
engraving  by  Martin  Droeshout  in  the  First  Folio  gives 
no  more  attractive  presentment,  and  none  of  the  innumer- 
able portraits  which  pass  as  Shakespeare's  carry  any 
guarantee  of  authenticity.2  Aubrey  asserts  that  the  poet 
was  'a  handsome  well  shap't  man:  very  good  company, 
and  of  a  very  readie  and  pleasant  smooth  witt'.  There  is 
no  other  reference  to  his  personal  appearance,  but  suffi- 
cient testimony  to  his  manners.  Rowe  had  gathered  that 
he  was  held  in  esteem  for  his  'exceeding  candor  and  good 
nature',  but  may  be  only  echoing  Ben  Jonson,  who  wrote 
in  verse  of 'my  gentle  Shakespeare'  and  in  prose  described 
him  as  'honest,  and  of  an  open,  and  free  nature'.  We  can- 
not, I  think,  ascribe  to  Shakespeare  that  rigid  propriety 
of  sexual  conduct,  the  absence  of  which  in  more  modern 
poets  it  has  too  often  been  the  duty  of  their  family  bio- 
graphers to  conceal.  The  indications  of  the  Sonnets  and 
perhaps  Willobie  his  dvisa,  John  Manningham's  contem- 
porary talk  of  a  more  ephemeral  intrigue,  the  gossip  about 
Mistress  Davenant,  do  not  leave  an  impression  of  com- 
plete fidelity  to^  Anne  Hathaway.3  But  as  to  the  normal 
sobriety  of  his  life  we  may  be  content  to  accept  the  report 
of  William  Beeston  to  Aubrey  that  'he  was  not  a  company 
keeper'  and  that  he  'wouldnt  be  debauched,  &  if  invited 

1  App.  A,  no.  xxv$  cf.  Plates  XXII,     XXVI,  XXVII. 
ni-      ...  J  Cf.  pp.  560, 569,  and  App.  B,no. 

Cf.  vol.  u,  p.  340,  and  Plates     xriv. 


Chap.  Ill      SHAKESPEARE  AND  HIS  COMPANY  91 

to,  writ,  he  was  in  paine'.1  The  hope,  apparent  in  Shake- 
speare's will,  of  founding  a  family  was  not  destined  to 
fulfilment.2  Susanna  Hall  had  no  sons.  Elizabeth  Hall, 
who  married  successively  Thomas  Nash  of  Stratford  and 
John,  afterwards  Sir  John,  Bernard  of  Abington  in 
Northamptonshire,  had  no  children.  Judith  Quiney  had, 
but  the  last  died  in  1639.  Shortly  afterwards  steps  were 
taken  to  terminate  the  entail.  Lady  Bernard  left  the 
Henley  St  houses  to  the  Harts  in  1670,  and  the  last 
remnants  of  Shakespeare's  property  were  sold  by  a  distant 
kinsman  as  her  residuary  legatee  after  Sir  John's  death 
in  1674.  There  are  no  existing  descendants  of  Shake- 
speare. 

1  App.  C,  no.  xiii.  2  App.  A,  no.  xxiv. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY 

[Bibliographical  Note.  A  list  of  manuscripts  of  plays  datable  up  to  1616 
is  in  £/iz.  Stage 9  iv.  404.  Many  of  these  represent  court  or  academic  plays 
for  amateur  performance,  or  purely  literary  compositions,  or  translations, 
or  are  too  fragmentary  or  of  too  early  date  to  throw  light  upon  the  practice 
of  the  professional  companies.    The  Malone  Society  Reprints  include 
admirable  type-facsimiles,  edited  with  full  palaeographical  descriptions  by 
W.  W.  Greg  or  under  his  supervision,  of  Munday's  John  a  Kent  and  John 
a  Cumber  (1923,  ed.  M.  St.  C.  Byrne  from  Mostyn,  now  Huntington  MS.), 
Sir  Thomas  More  (1911,  ed.  W.  W.  Greg  from  HarL  MS.  7368),  The 
Second  Maiden's  Tragedy  (1909,  ed.  W.  W.  Greg  from  Lansd.  MS.  807), 
The  Welsh  Embassador  (1920,  ed.  H.  Littledale  and  W.  W.  Greg  from 
Phillipps  MS.  8719,  now  in  Cardiff  Public  Library),  Massinger's  Believe 
as  Ton  List  (1927,  ed.  C.  J.  Sisson  from  Egerton  MS.  2828),  Edmond 
Ironside  (1927,  ed.  E.  Boswell  from  Egerton  MS.  1994),  The  Parliament 
of  Love  (1928,  ed.  K.  M.  Lea  from  Dye  MS.  39),  Richard  Hoi  Thomas 
of  Woodstock  (1929,  ed.  W.  P.  Frijlinck  from  Egerton  MS.  1994). 
Similar  in  character  is  Sir  John  Fan  Olden  Barnavelt  (1922,  ed.  W.  P. 
Frijlinck  from  Addl.  MS.  18653).  There  are  also  photographic  facsimiles 
of  John  a  Kent  (1912),  Sir  Thomas  More  (1910),  and  Believe  as  You 
List  (1907)  in  J.  S.  Farmer's  Tudor  Facsimile  Texts.   Two  of  the  above 
plays  are  drawn  from  the  collection  of  William  Cartwright  the  younger 
(ob.  1687),  in  Egerton  MS.  1994.    This  is  described  by  F.  S.  Boas  in 
Shakespeare  and  the  Universities  (1923),  96.    It  contains  twelve  other 
plays,  besides  a  mask,  several  of  which  are  in  hand  for  M.S.R.    Three 
represent  plays  also  extant  in  early  prints,  Nero  (1624),  Fletcher's  Elder 
Brother  (1637),  Daborne's  Poor  Man's  Comfort  (1655;  cf.  Eliz.  Stage, 
iii.  271).    One,  Calisto  or  The  Escapes  of  Jupiter,  is  put  together  from 
Heywood's  Golden  Age  (1611)  and  Silver  Age  (1613),  and  is  described 
by  W.  W.  Greg  in  Anglica  (1925),  ii.  212.  Four  are  available  in  more 
or  less  modernized  texts,  Dick  of  Devonshire  and  The  Lady  Mother  (i  883, 
ed.  A.  H.  Bullen  in  0.£.  Plays,  ii),  Charlemagne  or  The  Distracted 
Emperor  (1884,  ilia1,  iii;  1920,  ed.  F.  L.  Schoell;  cf.  Ettx.  Stage,  iv.  5), 
Heywood's  The  Captives  (1885,  ibid,  iv;  1921,  ed.  A.  C.  Judson),  as  well 
as  J  Richard  II  (1899,  ed.  W.  Keller,  J.  xxxv.  3;  cf.  EBx.  Stage,  iv. 
42).    The  Fatal  Marriage  or  A  Second  Lucreatya,  The  Two  Noble  Ladies, 
Loves  Changelinges  Change,  and  The  Lanchinge  of  the  Mary  or  The 
Seamans  Honest  Wife  are  unprinted,  but  the  last  is  very  fully  studied  by 
Boas.  The  manuscripts  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  Honest  Man's  Fortune 
(Dye  MS.  9)  and  Bonduca  (AddL  MS.  36758)  and  of  Middleton's  The 
Witch  (Malone  MS.  12)  are  described  by  W.  W.  Greg  (4  Library,  vi. 
148);  that  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  The  Humourous  Lieutenant  (Lord 
Harlecffs  MS.\  here  called  Demetrius  and  Enanthe,  by  F.  P.  Wilson 


Chap.  IV  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  93 

(ibid.  vii.  194);  the  five  of  Middleton's  Game  of  Chess  in  R.  C.  Bald's 
edition  (1929).  The  account  of  The  Faithful  Friends  (Dyce  MS.  10)  in 
E.  H.  C.  Oliphant,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  526,  needs  revision.  Manu- 
scripts of  Middleton's  Mayor  of  Quinborough  and  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's 
Beggar's  Busk  require  description.  The  latter  is  said  by  F.  Marcham, 
The  'King's  Office  of  the  Revels  (192  5),  6,  to  be  in  a  hand  like  that  of  The 
Witch.  The  late  manuscripts  of  Hen.  IF,  Twelfth  Night,  and  Merry 
Wives  of  W.  are  noted  in  ch.  ix.  Valuable  dissertations  on  the  nature 
of  the  manuscripts  are  W.  W.  Greg,  Prompt  Copies*  Private  Transcripts^ 
and  the  Play-House  Scrivener  (1925,  4  Library,  vi.  148);  C.  J.  Sisson, 
Bibliographical  Aspects  of  some  Stuart  Dramatic  Manuscripts  (1925,  R.E.S. 
i.  421);  F.  P.  Wilson,  Ralph  Crane,  Scrivener  to  the  King's  Players  (1926, 
4  Library,  vii.  194) ;  W.  J.  Lawrence,  Early  Prompt  Books  and  What  they 
Reveal  (1927,  Pre-Restoration  Studies], 

The  relations  of  the  Master  of  the  Revels  to  the  stage  are  described  in 
Eliz.  Stage,  chh.  iii,  x,  and  xxii,  and  the  working  of  the  Jacobean  and 
Caroline  censorship  may  be  further  studied  in  V.  C.  Gildersleeve,  Govern- 
ment Regulation  of  the  English  Drama  (1908),  F.  S.  Boas,  Shakespeare  and 
the  Universities  (1923),  E.  M.  Albright,  Dramatic  Publication  in  England, 
1580-1640  (1927),  S.  R.  Gardiner,  The  Political  Element  in  Massinger 
(1875-6,  N.S.S.  Trans.  314),  T.  S.  Graves,  Some  Affusions  to  Religious 
and  Political  Plays  (1912,  M.P.  ix.  545),  The  Political  Use  of  the  Stage 
during  the  Reign  of  James  I  (1914,  Anglia,  xxxviii.  137).  The  hand- 
writings of  the  Masters  are  in  W.  W.  Greg,  English  Literary  Autographs, 

1  (1925),  xxx.  The  fragments  of  Sir  Henry  Herbert's  Office  Book  are  col- 
lected from  Malone  (Fariorum,  iii)  and  G.  Chalmers,  Supplemental  Apology 
(1799),  in  J.  Q.  Adams,  The  Dramatic  Records  of  Sir  Henry  Herbert  (iw). 
A  few  additional  ones  are  given  from  books  annotated  by  Malone  in  W.  J. 
Lawrence,  New  Tacts  from  Sir  Henry  Herbert9 s  Office  Book  (1923,  Nov.  29, 
T.L.S.),  and  by  F.  P.  Wilson  (4  Library,  vii.  209).  Adams  also  reprints 
many  of  the  papers  collected  by  Herbert  for  his  Restoration  lawsuits,  as 
given  from  AddL  MS.  19256  in  H.P.,  A  Collection  of  Ancient  Documents 
Respecting  the  Office  of  the  Master  of  the  Revels  (i  870).  The  end  of  Herbert's 
career  is  traced  in  A.Nicoll,  History  of  Restoration  Drama  (ed.  2, 1928),and 
L.  Hotson,  The  Commonwealth  and  Restoration  Stage  (1928).   There  is 
much  on  the  book-keeper  and  his  fellows  in  T.  W.  Baldwin,  The  Organ- 
ization and  Personnel  of  the  Shakespearean  Company  (1927).  W.W.  Greg 
collected  the  'plots'  in  Henslowe  Papers  (1907)  and  is  re-editing  them 
in  his  coming  Dramatic  Documents  from  the  Elizabethan  Playhouses. 
He  discussed  the  conclusions  to  be  drawn  from  them  in  The  Evidence 
of  Theatrical  Plots  for  the  History  of  the  Elizabethan  Stage  (1925,  R.E.S.  i. 

2  57).  He  also  printed  the  'part'  of  Orkndo  in  Henslowe  Papers*  and  edited  it 
fully,  in  a  parallel-text  with  the  corresponding  passages  of  the  1 594  Quarto  of 
Orlando  Furioso,  in  Two  Elizabethan  Stage  Abridgements  (1923).] 

SHAKESPEARE  may  be  read,  to  profit  and  delight,  in  the 
barest  of  unannotated  texts,  and  the  plays  may  be  taken 


94  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  Chap.  IV 

in  any  order.  Nor  does  their  power  to  evoke  mirth  and 
emotion  fail  upon  the  stage,  even  through  such  distant  ap- 
proximation to  Elizabethan  methods  of  presentment  as  the 
habits  of  modern  producers  and  modern  actors  impose.  But 
that  bare  unannotated  text  is  already  a  reconstruction,  due 
to  generations  of  scholars,  working  by  patient  comparison 
and  less  patient  conjecture  upon  the  discrepant  and  often 
dubious  versions  handed  down  from  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. And  the  unquiet  spirit  of  criticism  is  still  urgent  with 
questions,  for  which  the  conscientious  student  will  feel  his 
obligation  to  attempt  answers.  These  are  the  problems  of 
transmission,  of  authenticity,  of  revision,  of  chronology. 
How  far  can  the  reconstructed  text,  after  all,  be  accepted  as 
a  faithful  rendering  of  the  form  in  which  Shakespeare  left 
the  plays?  Was  he  the  sole  author  of  what  passes  under 
his  name,  or  is  his  work,  through  adaptation  or  collabora- 
tion, entangled  in  the  traditional  canon  with  that  of  other 
men  ?  Did  he  himself  alter  or  rewrite  what  he  at  first 
composed?  Can  we  arrange  the  plays  in  an  order  of  time, 
and  so  arrive  at  some  nearer  knowledge  of  the  develop- 
ment of  a  personality,  left  obscure  by  the  colourless  facts 
of  biographical  record,  the  fragmentary  notices  of  con- 
temporaries, the  doubtful  stories  of  a  younger  age,  and  the 
enigmatic  self-revelation  of  the  Sonnets  ?  The  four  prob- 
lems are  closely  interwoven,  and  their  solution  can  best  be 
approached  through  some  consideration  of  the  conditions 
under  which  Elizabethan  plays  were  prepared  for  the 
stage  and  passed  into  print. 

The  material  available,  although  it  is  fairly  abundant, 
has  to  be  pieced  together  from  many  sources;  and  if  it  is 
occasionally  necessary  to  draw  upon  Caroline,  rather  than 
Elizabethan  or  Jacobean,  evidence,  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  occupations,  alike  of  actor  and  of  printer, 
were  hereditary  and  conservative,  and  that,  while  allow- 
ance must  be  made  for  changes  in  detail,  the  death  of 
Shakespeare  did  not  constitute  a  break  in  traditions  which 
seem  to  have  been  fairly  continuous  from  the  middle  of 
the  sixteenth  century  to  the  closing  of  the  theatres  in 
1642.  The  plays  of  the  earlier  professional  companies,  so 


Chap.  IV  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  95 

far  as  we  can  judge,  came  mainly  from  the  pens  of  the 
actors  themselves,  and  did  not  as  a  rule  get  into  print.  The 
independent  playwrights  appear  in  the  course  of  the 
'eighties,  when  the  University  wits  were  turning  to  popu- 
lar literature  as  a  refuge  from  the  scanty  and  uncertain 
rewards  of  patronage.  Thereafter  they  were  the  chief 
sources  of  supply,  although  the  older  practice  was  not 
entirely  abandoned,  and  was  in  particular  continued  by 
Shakespeare  for  the  Chamberlain's  and  King's  men  and 
by  Thomas  Heywood  for  Worcester's  and  Queen  Anne's. 
Both  were  actor-playwrights,  holding  shares  in  individual 
companies  and  writing  for  these  alone.  The  literary  play- 
wrights, on  the  other  hand,  were  free  lances,  finding  no 
doubt  their  ordinary  markets  in  accustomed  quarters,  but 
not  tied  to  these,  except,  as  in  the  cases  of  Henry  Porter 
and  Henry  Chettle,  under  some  temporary  pressure  of 
economic  disadvantage.1  Their  relation  to  the  boy  com- 
panies may  have  been  slightly  different,  since  here  they  are 
sometimes  found  as  members  of  the  syndicates  by  which 
the  companies  were  financed  and  controlled.2  The  records 
kept  by  Philip  Henslowe  throw  light  upon  the  procedure 
followed  in  the  purchase  of  new  plays  from  poets  by  the 
companies  for  whom  he  was  the  agent.3  Jonson  submits 
a  'plot'  of  a  play,  but  never  writes  it.  It  is  taken  up  by 
Chapman,  who  sends  in  two  acts,  and  apparently.no  more. 
'We  haue  heard  their  books  and  lyke  yt'  writes  an  Ad- 
miral's man  to  Henslowe,  directing  payment  to  the 
authors.  Another  notifies,  'I  haue  hard  fyue  shetes  of  a 
playe  &  I  dow  not  doute  but  it  wyll  be  a  verye  good 
playe' ;  Henslowe  is  to  take  'the  papers'  into  his  own  hands, 
as  the  authors  have  promised  to  finish  it  by  Easter.  A  play 
of  Richard  Hathway's  falls  through.  He  is  to  'haue  his 
papars  agayne'  and  to  give  security  for  the  amount  he  has 
received.  Robert  Daborne  enters  into  a  bond  to  write  a 
play  by  a  given  date,  but  his  'papers'  come  in  slowly,  and 
some  of  them  are  'not  so  fayr  written  all  as  I  could  wish'. 


„  >  i-  374-  1945  Greg,  Henslawe  Papers,  49,  55, 

*  Ibid.  i.  378.  56,  65-84. 

3  Ibid.  i.  373$  ii.  161,  167,  2525  iii. 


96  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  Chap.  IV 

He  is  ready  to  read  instalments  to  Alleyn,  and  the  whole 
play  to  the  company  when  it  is  ready.  When  pressed  for 
the  last  scene  of  another  play,  he  writes,  'I  send  you  the 
foule  sheet  &  y6  fayr  I  was  wrighting  as  yr  man  can 
testify*.  He  'will  not  fayle  to  write  this  fayr  and  perfit  the 
book'.  Evidently  the  companies  watched  closely  the  pro- 
gress of  the  plays  which  they  commissioned.  And  the 
system  of  instalments  was  often  applied  to  the  payments 
as  well  as  to  the  delivery  of  sheets.  An  'earnest*  was 
generally  given  at  an  early  stage;  there  might  be  further 
advances  later;  and  a  payment  'in  full'  was  made  when 
the  work  was  complete.  The  total  amounts  paid  ranged 
from  £4  to  j£io  los.  towards  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  About  1613  Daborne  was  getting  from  j£io  to 
£20,  and  boasted  that  the  King's  men  would  give  him 
£25.  A  successful  play  might  bring  the  author  a  gratuity, 
and  a  second  or  third  night's  'benefit'  seems  to  have  be- 
come customary  in  the  seventeenth  century.1  The  plays 
were  carefully  preserved  by  the  companies,  and  repre- 
sented a  considerable  capital  value  as  part  of  their  'stock'. 
If  a  company  was  disbanded,  they  were  divided  among  the 
'sharers',  and  old  plays  thus  got  upon  the  market.  Alleyn 
seems  to  have  acquired  plays  of  the  original  Admiral's 
men  in  1589,  and  he  and  other  actors  are  found  selling  old 
plays  to  the  later  Admiral's  at  £2  each.2 

The  author's  'papers',  which  figure  so  largely  in 
Henslowe's  correspondence,  come  before  us  again  in 
the  epistle  to  the  First  Folio.  'Wee  haue  scarse  receiued 


from  him  a  blot  in  his  papers',  say  Heminges  and  Condell, 
in  commendation  of  their  dead  fellow's  facility.  Another 
term  appears  on  the  title-page,  which  describes  the  plays 
as  'Published  according  to  the  True  Originall  Copies', 
and  in  the  head-tide,  where  they  are  'Truely  set  forth, 
according  to  their  first  Originall'.  This  recurs  in  Hum- 
phrey Moseley's  epistle  to  the  first  Beaumont  and  Fletcher 
Folio  of  1647.  He  claims  to  give  'the  Originalls  from 
such  as  received  them  from  the  Authours  themselves',  and 
says  that  the  readers  would  appreciate  his  difficulties  if 

1  EliK'  Sta8*>  *•  373-  *  Ibid.  I  3725  ii.  165, 167,  179. 


Chap.  IV  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  97 

they  'knew  into  how  many  hands  the  Originalls  were  dis- 
persed'. And  he  explains  more  fully: 

When  these  Comedies  and  Tragedies  were  presented  on  the  Stage, 
the  detours  omitted  some  Scenes  and  Passages  (with  the  Authour's 
consent)  as  occasion  led  them;  and  when  private  friends  desir'd  a 
Copy,  they  then  (and  justly  too)  transcribed  what  they  Acted.  But 
now  you  have  both  All  that  was  Acted^  and  all  that  was  not;  even 
the  perfect  full  Originalls  without  the  least  mutilation;  So  that 
were  the  Authours  living  (and  sure  they  can  never  dye)  they  them- 
selves would  challenge  neither  more  nor  lesse  then  what  is  here 
published.' 

This  term  'original'  is  of  common  use  in  the  records  of 
the  medieval  stage,  and  there  it  seems  to  represent  the 
authoritative  copy  of  a  play  by  which  the  performances 
were  governed,  and  to  replace  the  earlier  Ordo  of  the 
liturgical  drama.  It  often  appears  in  some  such  form  as 
'regenall',  and  it  is  difficult  to  resist  the  conviction  that 
in  the  mind  of  medieval  writers  it  was  connected  with 
regere.1  Moseley  does  not  use  it  in  the  medieval  sense. 
It  is  perhaps  so  used  when  we  learn  that  the  Master  of  the 
Revels  reallowed  an  old  play,  'the  originall  being  lost'.2 
But  it  is  clear  that  the  ordinary  Elizabethan  term  for  an 
authoritative  stage-copy  was  simply  'the  book'.3  This 
appears  in  the  titles  of  play-manuscripts,  and  Dr.  Greg 
points  out  that  from  these  it  sometimes  made  its  way  into 
titles  as  recorded  in  the  Stationers'  Register.-*  Certainly  the 
'book'  was  not  in  all  respects  identical  with  the  'original' 
as  handed  in  by  the  author.  Moseley  indicates  that  pas- 
sages were  omitted.  But  'cuts'  were  only  one  feature  of  the 
adaptation  which  the  'original',  even  of  a  writer  familiar 
with  stage  conditions,  might  require  in  order  to  make  it 
a  safe  and  adequate  guide  to  actual  performance.  And 

1  Mediaeval  Stage,  ii.  143.  book    described    by    H.    Granville- 

*  Herbert  30.  Barker  in  R.E£.  iv  (1928),  233,  as 

3  Modern   writers   often   call   the  'begun  at  rehearsals*  and  containing 

'stage-copy'  the  'prompt-copy*,  and  notes   of  'interpretation   as   well   as 

no  doubt  this  was  one  of  its  uses;  cf.  mechanism*  is  an  elaborated  type. 

p.  121.  The  earliest  use  of  the  term  *  4  Library,  vii.  3845  cf.  the  S.  R. 

'prompt-book*  in  Q.E.D.  is  of  1809,  entries  for  Mer.  of  Fen.  and  Per. 

and  probably  the  modern  prompt- 

3 142.  i  w 


9g  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  Chap.  IV 

indeed,  although  Moseleymayhave  restored  'cut'  passages, 
it  is  clear  from  his  texts  that  apart  from  these  he  was  often 
printing  from  'books'  which  had  undergone  such  adapta- 
tion. We  may  distinguish  various  kinds  of  adaptation.  The 
author's  intentions,  as  indicated  in  his  original,  might  have 
to  be  accommodated  to  the  stage-structure,  properties,  and 
actors  of  a  given  theatre  at  a  given  date,  as  well  as  to  the 
time  available  for  representation,  and  perhaps  to  the  taste 
of  a  given  audience.  But,  also,  the  expression  of  these 
intentions  in  the  manuscript  might  itself  require  some  cor- 
rection; speeches  might  be  wrongly  distributed,  or  stage- 
directions  insufficient.  A  stage-copy  must  be  precise. 
Further,  before  a  play  could  be  presented,  it  had  to  receive 
the  allowance  of  a  censor,  by  an  endorsement  on  the  stage- 
copy,  and  this  might  entail  the  alteration  of  passages  likely 
to  be  objectionable  to  the  censor,  or  in  fact  disapproved  of 
by  him.  It  is  necessary  to  consider  the  operation  of  the 
agencies  through  which  such  adaptation  was  carried  out 
and  their  effect  upon  the  'book'. 

I  have  already  devoted  much  space  to  the  question  of 
Elizabethan  stage-censorship,  and  need  not  repeat  the 
whole  story  here.1  The  main  agent  was  throughout  the 
Master  of  the  Revels,  a  Household  official,  working  under 
the  direction  of  the  Lord  Chamberlain,  or  in  matters  of 
higher  importance  under  that  of  the  Privy  Council,  the 
High  Commission,  or  even  the  sovereign.  His  original 
functions  included  the  review  of  plays  given  at  court. 
Tentatively  under  a  patent  for  Leicester's  men  in  1 574, 
more  directly  under  a  commission  issued  to  him  in  1581, 
and  effectively,  as  overruling  a  claim  to  censorship  by  the 
London  corporation,  about  1589,  they  came  to  cover  all 
plays  given  in  public.  A  special  arrangement  for  the 
Queen's  Revels  in  1604  proved  unsatisfactory,  and  was 
not  of  long  duration.  The  requirement  of  the  Master's 
endorsement  'at  the  latter  end  of  the  said  booke  they  doe 
play'  is  already  recorded  in  1 584.  An  Act  to  Restraine  Abuses 
of  Players^  which  had  effect  from  27  May  1606,  forbade 
the  jesting  or  profane  use  in  plays  of  'the  holy  Name  of 

»  317-3*5  ii-  48-54, 2215  iii.  168-70, 191. 


Chap.  IV  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  99 

God  or  of  Christ  Jesus,  or  of  the  Holy  Ghoste  or  of  the 
Trinitie';  and  although  the  Master  is  not  specifically  re- 
ferred to,  he  naturally  kept  an  eye  on  its  observance.1 
From  about  1607  onwards  he  seems  also  to  have  acted  as 
licenser  for  the  printing  of  plays,  on  behalf  of  the  High 
Commission.  Edmund  Tilney  was  Master  from  1579  to 
his  death  on  20  August  1610.  But  under  James  he  had  a 
deputy  in  his  nephew  Sir  George  Buck,  who  held  a  rever- 
sion of  the  post  and  became  his  successor.  Buck  lived  to 
20  September  1623,  but  by  29  March  1622  he  was  mad, 
and  Sir  John  Astley  or  Ashley,  who  in  his  turn  held  a 
reversion,  was  sworn  in  as  Master.  He  did  not  officiate 
long.  On  20  July  1623  he  granted  a  deputation,  for  a 
consideration  of  j£  150  a  year,  to  Henry  Herbert,  brother 
of  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury  and  of  the  poet  George 
Herbert,  and  kinsman  of  William  Herbert,  Earl  of  Pem- 
broke, then  Lord  Chamberlain.2  Herbert  was  knighted 
and  accepted  by  the  king  as  Master  on  August  y.3 
Technically  he  long  remained  a  mere  deputy,  but  on  25 
August  1629,  he  obtained  a  reversion,  with  one  Simon 
Thelwall,  for  their  joint  lives.  A  prior  reversion  had  been 
granted  to  Ben  Jonson  on  5  October  1621.-*  But  Ashley 
outlived  him,  and  from  Ashley's  death  on  1 3  January  1 64 1 
Herbert  held  the  Mastership  in  his  own  right.  His  duties 
lapsed  at  the  closing  of  the  theatres,  and  although  he 
resumed  them  at  the  Restoration,  it  was  only  to  incur 
serious  embarrassment  owing  to  the  conflicting  rights 
granted  by  Charles  II  to  the  patentees  of  the  leading 
theatres.  He  died  on  27  April  1673.  Simon  Thelwall  was 
still  alive  in  1662,  but  does  not  appear  at  any  time  to  have 
acted  as  Master.  One  William  Blagrave  collected  fees  for 
Herbert,  and  licensed  a  play  as  his  deputy  in  1635.5 

*  Text  in  EKx.  Stage,  iv.  338.  Court  in  1629  and  payee  in  1635  *°r 

a  Cunningham  xlix,  from  enrol-  court  plays  given  by  the  King's  Revels 

ment  of  indenture  in  Audit  Office.  from  there  (Adams,  Sh.  Playhouses, 

3  R.  Warner,  Epistolary  Curiosities,  3695  L.C.  v.  134,  p.  39.  The  pedigree 

3 .  in  Harl.  Soc.  Ixv.  83  does  not  show  him 

«  Works,  i.  237,  from  Patent  Roll.  a  son  of  Thomas  Blagrave,  the  Eliza- 

s  Boas,  Sh.  and  the  Universities,  98.  bethan  Clerk  of  the  Revels.  He  might 

Blagrave  was  a  lessee  of  Salisbury  be  a  grandson.  I  take  this  opportunity 

H  2 


ioo  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  Chap.  IV 

Another  deputy,  Thomas  Herbert,  allowed  the  printing  of 
a  play  in  1 63 y.1  It  is  during  Herbert's  administration  that 
we  get  the  dearest  view  of  the  working  of  the  censorship. 
He  kept  an  Office  Book,  which  seems  also  to  have  con- 
tained a  few  initial  entries  by  Sir  John  Ashley.  This  was 
left  at  Herbert's  death  in  his  house  at  Ribbesford  in  Wor- 
cestershire. It  was  used  by  Malone  in  1789  and  by 
Chalmers  before  1799.  It  was  then  in  bad  condition  and 
has  since  disappeared.  A  statement  of  Halliwell-Phillipps 
in  1880  that  it  was  in  the  possession  of  the  Earl  of  Powis 
cannot  be  verified.2  The  extracts,  however,  made  by 
Malone  and  Chalmers,  although  certainly  not  complete, 
enable  us  to  get  a  fair  notion  of  Herbert's  activities;  and 
further  light  is  thrown  upon  them  by  a  collection  of  papers 
relating  to  his  post-Restoration  controversies.3  The  Office 
Book  contained  dated  entries  of  plays  or  alterations  of 
plays  and  of  other  entertainments  licensed  for  perform- 
ance by  Herbert,  and  of  plays  and  masks  given  under  his 
supervision  at  court.*  Here,  too,  he  recorded  such  events 
as  inhibitions  for  plague  and  the  setting  up  of  new  theatres 
and  companies.  Only  a  few  entries  of  licences  for  printing 
are  among  the  extracts,  and  the  publications  concerned  are 
generally  not  plays.  Possibly,  therefore,  the  citations  of 
licences  by  Herbert  and  other  Masters  in  the  Stationers' 
Register  normally  refer  to  their  licences  for  performance, 
and  these  were  regarded  as  covering  printing.  Herbert  is 
careful  to  note  the  fees  he  received,  and  the  supplementary 
exactions  m  the  way  of 'benefits'  and  payments  for  'Lenten 
dispensations'  which  he  levied  upon  the  companies.  His 
brother,  Lord  Herbert  of  Cherbury,  tells  us  that  he  made 
a  great  fortune  out  of  court  employment.  But  his  losses 
after  the  Restoration  were  considerable.  More  interesting 
in  the  present  inquiry  is  a  group  of  entries  showing  the 
disallowances  which  he  felt  called  upon  to  make.  The 

of  correcting  the  statement  in  EKz.  '  Arber,  iv.  376 

Stage,  i.  99,  that  Thomas  Blagrave  *  W.    W.    Greg    in    Gentleman's 

bved  to  the  end  of  Elizabeth's  reign.  Magazine,  ccc  (1906)^2. 

He ,  nu  buried  at  St.  James's,  derken-  3  AddL  MSf        A  'rf  Bm  N 

7\  °*  i  ^  I59°  (HarL  SoC*         4  For  ="**  notices  of  Sha£- 
Registers,  xvu.  41).  spearean  revivals,  cf.  App.  D. 


Chap.  IV  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  101 

object  of  censorship,  says  one  of  the  post-Restoration 
memoranda,  'is,  that  all  prophaneness,  oathes,  ribaldry, 
and  matters  reflecting  vpon  piety  and  the  present  governe- 
ment  may  bee  obliterated,  before  there  bee  any  action  in 
a  publique  Theatre'.1  Possible  interventions  by  players  in 
civil  or  foreign  politics  called  for  constant  vigilance.  Her- 
bert 'reforms'  The  Duchess  of  Suffolk,  which  was  full  of 
'dangerous  matter'.  He  refuses  to  allow  a  play  of  Mas- 
singer's,  which  we  can  identify  as  an  early  form  of  Believe 
as  You  Listy  because  it  too  had  'dangerous  matter,  as  the 
deposing  of  Sebastian  king  of  Portugal  by  Philip  the 
Second,  and  ther  being  a  peace  sworen  twixte  the  kings 
of  England  and  Spayne'.2  Another  play  of  Massinger's, 
The  King  and  the  Subject,  he  only  passes,  with  'reforma- 
tions' and  under  an  altered  name,  on  express  warrant  from 
the  king,  who  had  read  the  book  at  Newmarket  and 
marked  a  passage  'This  is  too  insolent,  and  to  bee  changed'. 
In  1640  William  Beeston  is  committed  to  the  Marshalsea 
for  giving  a  play  without  licence.  'The  play  I  cald  fof,  and, 
forbidding  the  playinge  of  it,  keepe  the  booke,  because  it 
had  relation  to  the  passages  of  the  K.s  journey  into  the 
Northe,  and  was  complaynd  of  by  his  M.*3*  to  mee,  with 
commande  to  punishe  the  offenders.'  Other  disallowances 
were  due  to  the  Aristophanic  satire  of  prominent  per- 
sonages. 'Abusive  matter'  in  The  Widow's  Prize  is  re- 
formed. Shirley's  The  Ball  must  be  purged  from  its 
personation  of  'lords  and  others  of  the  court*.  Inigo  Jones 
is  protected  against  The  Tale  of  the  Tub  and  *Mr  Sewster' 
against  The  City  Shuffler.  A  care  for  piety  requires  the 
committal  of  a  broker  'for  lending  a  church-robe  with  the 
names  of  Jesus  upon  it,  to  the  players  in  Salisbury  Court, 
to  present  a  Flamen,  a  priest  of  the  heathens'.  Herbert 
was  alive  to  profanity,  and  even,  odd  as  it  appears  to  us 
after  reading  the  Caroline  drama,  to  indecency.  The 
Plantation  of  Virginia  can  only  be  tolerated,  'the  profane- 
ness  to  be  left  out*.  The  Tamer  Tamed  is  stayed  and 
'purgd  of  oaths,  prophaness,  and  ribaldrye'.  A  play  re- 
ceived from  Mr.  Kirke  is  burnt  by  Herbert,  after  taking 

1  Herbert  125.  *  Cf.  p.  no. 


102  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  Chap.  IV 

his  fee,  cfor  the  ribaldry  and  offense  that  was  in  it*.  Even 
Winter's  Tale  is  not  allowed  without  an  assurance  that 
there  is  'nothing  profane  added  or  reformed'.  On  the 
other  hand,  Shirley's  The  Toung  Admiral  receives  a  special 
commendation  for  its  freedom  from  'oaths,  prophaness,  or 
obsceanes'.  As  to  profanity,  Herbert  sometimes  went  too 
far.  His  reformation  of  Davenant's  The  Wits  resulted  in 
a  protest  to  the  king,  and  the  king  called  Herbert  into 
the  window  of  his  withdrawing  chamber,  and  with  great 
courtesy  overruled  him.  Whereupon  Herbert  noted  in 
the  Office  Book,  'The  kinge  is  pleased  to  take/^V/z,  death) 
slight,  for  asseverations,  'and  no  oaths,  to  which  I  doe 
humbly  submit  as  my  masters  judgment;  but,  under 
favour,  conceive  them  to  be  oaths,  and  enter  them  here,  to 
declare  my  opinion  and  submission/  On  the  other  hand, 
Herbert's  vigilance  sometimes  failed  him.  It  is  true  that, 
when  Jonson's  The  Magnetic  Lady  came  before  the  High 
Commission,  he  was  absolved  of  blame.  Presumably  the 
players  had  foisted  in  something  objectionable  which  he 
had  not  allowed.  But  we  know  from  sources  other  than 
the  Office  Book  that  early  in  his  career  he  was  called  to 
account  for  licensing  a  distinctly  political  play  in  Middle- 
ton's  Game  at  Chess.1  Professor  Gardiner,  moreover,  has 
shown  that  some  of  Massinger's  extant  plays  do  in  fact 
contain  obvious  political  matter.  Possibly  Herbert  had  a 
blind  eye  for  Massinger.  They  were  both  adherents  of  the 
Earl  of  Pembroke,  whose  politics  were  often  in  opposition 
to  those  of  the  Duke  of  Buckingham, 

^  Herbert,  of  course,  was  only  just  in  office  before  the 
First  Folio  was  published.  But  his  objections  to  political 
matter  can  be  abundantly  paralleled  from  the  earlier  his- 
tory of  the  stage,  and  some  protection  had  been  given  to 
persons  of  importance  as  far  back  as  i6oi.2  A  tendency 
to  criticism  of  society  in  general,  and  of  the  frailties  of 
gallants  and  ladies  in  particular,  was,  however,  a  growing 

1  Cf.p.  125,  James  recalled  'acorn-  date  of  this  is  unknown,  but  may  be 

mandment  and  restraint  given  against  1604,  when  Cowry  gave  offence  (Etiz. 

the  representing  of  any  modern  Christ-  Stage,  i.  327). 

ian  kings  in  those  stage-plays'.    The  »  &Kx.  Stage,  iv.  332. 


Chap.  IV  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  103 

feature  of  the  seventeenth-century  drama.  Heywood,in  his 
Apology  for  Actors,  says: J 

Now,  to  speake  of  some  abuse  lately  crept  into  the  quality,  as  an 
inveighing  against  the  state,  the  court,  the  law,  the  citty,  and  their 
governements,  with  the  particularizing  of  private  men's  humors 
(yet  alive)  noble-men  and  others,  I  know  it  distastes  manyj  neither 
do  I  in  any  way  approve  it,  nor  dare  I  by  any  meanes  excuse  it. 

Similarly  John  Chamberlain  writes  to  Dudley  Carleton 
in  1620: 2 

Our  pulpits  ring  continually  of  the  insolence  and  impudence  of 
women;  and  to  help  forward,  the  players  have  likewise  taken  them 
to  task;  and  so  to  the  ballads  and  ballad-singers;  so  that  they  can 
come  nowhere  but  their  ears  tingle. 

An  inevitable  sequel  drew  the  irony  of  Ben  Jonson  in 
Bartholomew  Fair: 3 

It  is  finally  agreed,  by  the  foresaid  hearers,  and  spectators,  that 
they  neyther  in  themselues  conceale,  nor  suffer  by  them  to  be  con- 
cealed any  State-decipherer,  or  politique  Picklocke  of  the  Scene,  so 
solemnly  ridiculous,  as  to  search  out,  who  was  meant  by  the  Ginger- 
bread-woman,  who  by  the  Hobby-horse-man,  who  by  the  Costard- 
monger,  nay,  who  by  their  Wares.  Or  that  will  pretend  to  affirme 
(on  his  owne  inspired  ignorance)  what  Mirror  of  Magistrates  is 
meant  by  the  lustice,  what  great  Lady  by  the  Pigge-woman,  what 
conceal* d  States-man,  by  the  Seller  of  Mouse-trappes,  and  so  of  the 
rest.  But  that  such  person,  or  persons  so  found,  be  left  discouered 
to  the  mercy  of  the  Author,  as  a  forfeiture  to  the  Stage,  and  your 
laughter,  aforesaid.  As  also,  such  as  shall  so  desperately,  or  ambi- 
tiously, play  the  foole  by  his  place  aforesaid,  to  challenge  die  Author 
of  scurrilitie,  because  the  language  some  where  savours  of  Smith- 
field,  the  Booth,  and  the  Pig-broath,  or  of  prophaneness,  because 
a  Mad-man  cryes,  God  quit  you,  or  blesseyou. 

Piety  had  been  emphasized  by  the  Act  of  Abuses.  This  can 

1  Heywood,  Apology,  61.  The  date  They  make  a  libell,  which  he  made 

is  probably  1607  or  1608.    Cf.  Eliz.  a  play. 

Stage,  iv.  250.  ^  Earlier  criticism  of  informers,  not 

*  Birch,  Jamest  11.  200.  necessarily  concerned  with  plays,  is 

3  /«^.i4o.  Cf.theapologeticaldia-  cited  by  Albright  198  from  Nashe, 

logue  to  Poetaster  and  the  prologue  to  Wor^  L  a6o.  ^  l82.  ^  2I3. 

Epicoenei 


104  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  Chap.  IV 

hardly  be  set  down  to  the  personal  predilections  of  James, 
who  'would  make  a  great  deale  too  bold  with  God  in  his 
passion,  both  in  cursing  and  swearing,  and  one  straine 
higher  verging  on  blasphemie'.1  Possibly  it  was  a  relic  of  a 
more  general  Bill  for  Reformation  of  the  Common  ^  Sin  of 
Swearing  and  Blasphemy,  which  was  passed,  not  with 
unanimity,  by  the  House  of  Commons  in  1 604,  but  did 
not  become  law.*  In  any  case  the  personal  austerity  of 
Herbert  pressed  its  very  limited  provisions  rather  far. 
That  he  regarded  it  as  his  duty  to  tighten  up  a  rather  lax 
administration  is  clear  from  his  elaborate  entry  of  21 
October  1633  in  the  case  of  The  Tamer  Tamed.  This  was 
an  old  play,  and  in  dealing  with  it  he  took  occasion  to  lay 
down  that  old  plays  as  well  as  new  must  be  submitted  for 
his  allowance,  'since  they  may  be  full  of  offensive  things 
against  church  and  state;  y*  rather  that  in  former  time 
the  poetts  tooke  greater  liberty  than  is  allowed  them  by 
mee'.  He  made  two  other  requirements.  One  was  that 
'The  players  ought  not  to  study  their  parts  till  I  have 
allowed  of  the  booke' ;  the  other  that  'The  Master  ought  to 
have  copies  of  their  new  playes  left  with  him,  that  he  may 
be  able  to  shew  what  he  hath  allowed  or  disallowed'.  It 
is  not  perhaps  quite  clear  whether  this  was  entirely  new 
doctrine  of  1633,  or  the  revival  of  an  older  practice  which 
had  been  allowed  to  lapse.  Some  old  plays  had  been  sub- 
mitted to  Herbert  before  1633.  In  a  few  cases  they  had 
undergone  alteration.  Most  of  the  rest  had  been  licensed 
by  Sir  George  Buck.  The  allowed  books  of  two  at  least 
of  these,  Winter's  Tale  and  The  Honest  Man's  Fortune,  were 
missing,  and  that  of  Jugurth  had  been  'burnt,  with  his 
other  books'.  This  was  a  Fortune  play,  and  the  burning 
might  have  been  at  the  destruction  of  that  theatre  by  fire 
in  1621,  when  in  fact  the  play-books  were  lost.3  It  has 
been  thought  that  books  of  the  King's  men  might  have 
perished  similarly  at  the  fire  of  1613.  But  Winter's  Tale 
had  been  revived  since  then,  and  the  original  Honest  Man's 
Fortune  seems  to  have  turned  up  in  time  for  the  Folio  of 

1  A.  WeUdon,  The  Court  and  Char-     ii.  9).  *  Cf.  p.  238 

acter  of  King  James  (Secret  History,         »  Etix.  Stage,  ii.  442. 


Chap.  IV  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  105 

1647.  Moreover,  Herbert  also  reallowed  two  old  books 
of  Buck's  time  for  Prince  Charles's  men  at  the  Red  Bull 
and  the  Lady  Elizabeth's  at  the  Cockpit,  and  we  can 
hardly  assume  unrecorded  fires  at  their  houses.  It  is 
possible,  therefore,  that  Buck  had  been  in  the  habit  of 
keeping  'fair  copies'  of  plays  submitted  to  him,  and  that 
it  was  these  which  were  burnt. 

When  Herbert  had  done  his  worst  for  The  Tamer 
Tamed  on  21  October  1633,  he  returned  it  to  the  King's 
men,  with  an  endorsement  'directed  to  Knight,  their  book- 
keeper', of  which  he  recorded  a  copy. 

M*  Knight, 

In  many  things  you  have  saved  mee  labour;  yet  wher  your  judg- 
ment or  penn  fayld  you,  I  have  made  boulde  to  use  mine.  Purge 
ther  parts,  as  I  have  the  booke.  And  I  hope  every  hearer  and  player 
will  thinke  that  I  have  done  God  good  servise,  and  the  quality  no 
wronge;  who  hath  no  greater  enemies  than  oaths,  prophaness,  and 
publique  ribaldrye,  whch  for  the  future  I  doe  absolutely  forbid  to 
bee  presented  unto  mee  in  any  playbooke,  as  you  will  answer  it  at 
your  perill. 

It  was  'of  Knight'  that  he  received  a  fee  for  The  Magnetic 
Lady  on  12  October  1632.  In  allowing  The  Launching 
of  the  Mary  for  another  company  on  27  June  1633  he 
wrote,'  'I  command  your  Bookeeper  to  present  me  with  a 
fairer  copy  herafter'.1  It  is  unfortunate  that  we  know  so 
little  about  the  men  who  were  employed  as  stage  book- 
keepers. A  protection  of  27  December  1624  for  twenty- 
one  'musitions  and  other  necessary  attendantes',  clearly 
including  hired  actors,  employed  by  the  King's  men,  gives 
the  names  of  Edward  and  Anthony  Knight,2  One  or  other 
was  presumably  the  book-keeper  of  1633.  Neither  is  in 
a  later  protection  of  12  January  1637.3  John  Taylor,  the 
water  poet,  tells  in  a  story  of  Thomas  Vincent,  who  was 
'a  book-keeper  and  prompter  at  the  Globe  playhouse',4 

1  Boas,  St.  and  the   Universities,        *  Herbert  74. 
184.     Adams    (Herbert    35)    prints         3  L.C.  v.  134,  p.  142. 
'faire',  which  recalls  the  new  require-         *  Taylor's  Feast  (1638)  in  Third  Col- 

xnent  of  1633.  But  Herbert  also  noted  lections  of  Spenser  Soc.  70;  cf.  Baldwin 

of  a  play  in  1624  that  it  was  'not  of  124. 
a  legible  hand*. 


io6  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  Chap.  IV 

It  involves  John  Singer,  the  Admiral's  man,  who  left 
acting  in  1603,  and  was  probably  dead  by  1607.  This 
maybe  the  same  Vincent  who  appears  in  the  'plot'  of  Seven 
Deadly  Sins.1  According  to  Cavalier  scandal,  Hugh 
Peters,  the  Independent  divine,  had  been  a  book-holder  at 
the  Red  Bull.2  After  the  Restoration,  John  Downes  was 
'book-keeper  and  prompter'  at  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.^ 
Many  references  to  the  book-keeper,  book-holder,  or 
prompter  can  be  collected.4  They  do  not  tell  us,  as  could 
be  wished,  where  he  was  posted  in  the  theatre.  Obviously 
he  must  have  been  able  both  to  make  himself  audible  at 
the  front  of  the  stage,  and  to  communicate  with  the  tiring- 
house  behind.  The  allusion  in  Cynthia's  Revels  suggests 
that  he  was  in  the  tiring-house  itself,  but  this,  or  even  a 
place  between  the  hangings  and  the  stage-wall,  seems 
rather  far  back.  One  would  be  glad  to  believe  with  Mr. 
Granville-Barker  that  he  may  have  used  a  grated  opening 
which  Mr.  Lawrence  conjectures  to  have  existed  on  the 

book  prologue,  faintly  spoke  After  the 
prompter,  for  our  entrance';  Cynthia's 
Revels  (1601)  ind.  158,  *We  are  not  so 
officiously  befriended  by  him,  as  to 
have  his  presence  in  the  Tiring-house, 
to  prompt  us  aloud,  stampe  at  the 
Booke-holder,  sweare  for  our  Proper- 
ties, cursse  the  poore  Tire-man,  rayle 
the  Musique  out  of  tune';  Oth.  (1604), 
i.  2.  83,  'Were  it  my  cue  to  fight,  I 
should  have  known  it  Without  a 
prompter';  Every  Woman  in  her  Hu- 
mour (1603-8),  'He  would  swear  like 
an  Elephant,  and  stamp  and  stare 
(God  blesse  us)  like  a  play-house  book- 
keeper when  the  actors  misse  their  en- 
trance'; Maid  in  the  Mill  (1623),  ii.  2, 
'They  are  out  of  their  parts  sure,  It 
may  be  'Tis  the  Book-holders  fault: 
I'll  go  see*;  lady  Alimony  (c.  1630-40), 
i.  2,  'He  has  been  book-holder  to  my 
revels  for  decades  of  years  ...  Be  sure 
that  you  hold  not  your  book  at  too 
much  distance.  The  actors,  poor  lap- 
wings, are  but  pen-feathered;  and  once 
out,  out  for  ever*. 


'  Cf.p.44- 

2  Hotson  15. 

3  Roscius  Anglicanus  (1708),  A2. 

*  John  Palsgrave,  Lesclarcissement 
de  la  Langue  Francoyse  (1530),  199, 
4Boke  bearer  in  a  ploye,  prottocolle'; 
John  Higgins,  Nomenclator  (1585), 
501,  'He  that  telleth  the  players  their 
part  when  they  are  out  arid  have  for- 
gotten, the  prompter  or  bookeholder'; 
Spanish  Tragedy  (c.  1589),  iv.  4.  9, 
'Heere,  brother,  you  shall  be  the 
booke-keeper:  This  is  the  argument  of 
that  they  shew';  Summer's  Last  Will 
and  Testament  (1592),  1813,  *You 
might  haue  writ  in  the  margent  of 
your  play-booke,  Let  there  be  a  fewe 
rushes  laide  in  the  place  where  Bad- 
wmter  shall  tumble,  for  feare  of  raying 
his  cloathes:  or  set  downe,  Enter  Back- 
winter^  with  his  boy  bringing  a  brush 
after  him,  to  take  off  the  dust  if  need 
require.  But  you  will  ne're  haue  any 
ward-robe  wit  while  you  liue.  I  pray 
you  holde  the  booke  well,  we  be  not«o« 
phis  in  the  latter  end  of  the  play';  Rm. 
&Jul.  (1595),  i.  4. 7,  'Nor  no  without- 


Chap.  IV  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  107 

ground-floor  near  one  of  the  stage-doors,  and  Mr.  Gran- 
ville-Barker  himself  thinks  may  have  survived  in  a  little 
latticed  and  curtained  window,  now  or  formerly  cut  in  the 
prompt  side  ' tormentor '  in  every  theatre*1  This  would  be 
convenient  enough,  especially  if,  as  seems  possible,  there 
were  doors  set  more  forward  than  the  back  wall.2  But  Mr. 
Lawrence's  grounds  for  his  conjecture  are  not  strong.3  No 
doubt  it  was  one  of  the  functions  of  the  book-keeper 
Knight  in  1633  to  prompt.  But  he  had  others.  He  pre- 
pared the  'book'  for  the  Master  of  the  Revels  and  the 
parts'  for  the  actors.  The  protection  of  1624  names  a 
John  Rhodes,  taken  by  Professor  Baldwin  to  have  been, 
before  Knight,  book-keeper  to  the  King's  men.  He 
might  be  a  musician  who  died  in  1636,  but  more  likely 
the  'Mr  Rhodes,  a  bookseller,  being  wardrobe-keeper 
formerly  (as  I  am  informed)  to  King  Charles  the  First's 
company  of  commedians  in  the  Blackfriars',  to  whom 
Thomas  Betterton  was  apprenticed.-*  This  John  Rhodes 
was  born  about  1606  and  was  free  of  the  Draper's  Com- 
pany. He  became  a  bookseller  in  Little  Britain  (1628, 
1641)  and  St.  Martin-in-the-Fields  (1656).  But  he  did 
not  give  up  the  stage.  He  was  arrested  by  the  Lord 
Chamberlain  on  a  dispute  with  a  Prince's  man  (i  632)  and 
for  selling  the  King's  men's  plays  (i  639).  He  was  then  of 
the  Fortune.  In  1644  he  kept  the  Cockpit,  and  in  1660 
had  a  lease  of  this  house,  where  he  maintained  Betterton 
and  others  as  players,  ultimately  becoming  a  stroller.5 
I  doubt  whether  we  can  assume  that  a  'wardrobe-keeper' 

1  R.ES.  iv.  234.  Lieutenant,  iv.  4,  16,  but  these  were 

2  EKx.  Stage,  iii.  84,  100.  not  necessarily  side-doors.  They  might 

3  Physical  Conditions  of  the  Eltxa-  be  before  the  alcove,  where  any  desired 
bethan   Public   Playhouses^   67.   The  frontage  (Etiz.  Stage,  iii.  83)  could  be 
'grate*  in  2  Antonio  and  MelKda,  ii.  2.  arranged. 

127,  was  quite  clearly  not  at  a  door,  4  Downes,  Roscius  AngKcanus,  17. 

but  at  a  vault  below  the  stage  (cf.  5  Baldwin   1285  McKerrow,  Die- 

ii.  i.  44;  iv.  i.  2715  v*  i.  i).    The  tionary,  227;  A.  H.  Johnson,  Drapers' 

setting  of  Eastward  Hoe  (v.  3.  6j  v.  5.  Company,    iv.    155$     Nicoll    270-9; 

1 60)  is  uncertain  and  probably  ab-  Hotson  90,  99,  197,  205,  216;  B.  M. 

normal  (£#«.  Stage,  iii.  149).  More-  Wagner,  John  Rhodes  and  Ignoramus 

over  these  are  both  'private'  theatre  (R.E.S.  v.  43).     G.  E.  Bentley  in 

plays.   There  is  certainly  action  at  a  P.M.L.A.  xliv.  8175    £•&   v-    I32> 

ground -floor  window  near  a  door  in  p.  310$  134,  p.  345.    Greg  (R.E.S.vi. 

Woman's  Prize,  iii.  5,  and  Humourous  359)  shows  him  wH.M.Fortune  (1625). 


io8  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  Chap.  IV 

is  the  same  as  a  'book-keeper'.  He  is  more  likely  to  be  the 
same  as  the  'tireman',  whom  we  find  employed  by  the 
Admiral's  and  Worcester's  men,  as  well  as  in  the  private 
theatres.1  But  the  passage  in  Cynthia*  s  Revels  shows  that 
the  book-holder  was  distinct  from  the  tireman.  Moreover, 
the  tireman  was  available  as  a  'super',  which  the  book- 
holder  could  not  be.  The  book-holder  was  also  distinct 
from  the  stage-keeper,  since  the  pair,  represented  of  course 
by  actors,  converse  in  the  induction  to  Bartholomew  Fair. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  tireman  and  the  stage-keeper  might, 
for  all  we  know,  be  the  same.  The  tireman  brings  on  stools 
and  in  a  private  theatre  lights;  the  stage-keeper  brings  on 
chairs.2  Who  was  responsible  for  communicating  the  book- 
holder's  calls  for  actors,  properties,  and  machines  ?  He  must 
have  had  some  help.  Malone  made  and  withdrew  a  con- 
jecture that  this  was  Shakespeare's  first  duty  as  a  'servitor' 
or  'necessary  attendant'.3 

Some  light  is  thrown  upon  the  habits  of  censors  and 
book-keepers,  as  well  as  upon  those  of  authors  and  scribes, 
by  a  study  of  the  few  extant  manuscripts  of  plays  belong- 
ing to  the  professional  companies  which  have  been  pre- 
served.* Nine  of  these  have  been  reproduced  in  type- 
facsimiles,  with  full  descriptions  and  annotations  by  palaeo- 
graphical  experts  and  photographic  facsimiles  of  sample 
pages.  Of  three  full  photographic  facsimiles  are  also 
available.^  John  a  Kent  is  in  the  hand  of  Anthony  Munday, 
and  has  his  autograph  signature  at  the  end,  A  second  hand 
has  made  some  theatrical  alterations.  A  date  '  —  Decem- 
bris  1596'  is  probably  in  a  third,  and  may  have  been 
appended  to  a  memorandum  lost  through  the  mutilation 


.  Stage,  i.  371;  ii.  149,  226,  me  S*  suggests  stage-keeper.    Stage- 

54i-  keepers  appear  as  'supers'  in  the  MSS. 

*  Sir  John  Fan  Olden  Barnavelt,  of  The  Captives  and  The  Two  Noble 

2584  (s.d.),  '2  Chains  S**:  [Mf  Sir.'.  Ladies,    and     apparently    a    corn- 

Probably  Bir.  is  the  actor  George  pany,  to  whom  these  belonged,  had 

Birch.  The  editor  does  not  interpret  more  than  one  (Boas  103).    On  the 

S«,  and  says  that    the  reading  is  academic  stage  the  stage-keepers  were 

doubtful;  'it  is  possible  that  gtr  (Le.  stewards  (G.  C.  Moore-Smith,  College 

gatherer)  may  be  meant'.   No  doubt  Plays,  46). 

gatherers  were  occasionally  used  as  *  App.  C,  no.  xlviii. 

•supers'  (W&.  Stage,  i.  371).  But  to  *  Cf.  Si  bUografMcal  Note. 


Chap.  IV  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  109 

of  the  final  leaf.  The  play  itself  may  be  of  much  earlier 
date.  The  company  is  unknown.  Sir  Thomas  More  raises 
a  Shakespearean  problem,  and  is  more  fully  dealt  with 
elsewhere.1  This,  too,  is  in  the  hand  of  Munday.  It  has 
been  submitted  for  censorship  to  Tilney,  who  has  made 
and  required  alterations.  No  'allowance'  is  endorsed.  The 
original  scenes  have  been  partially  cancelled,  and  new  or 
rewritten  ones  added  on  inserted  leaves  or  on  strips  pasted 
over  old  matter.  These  are  in  five  hands,  known  as  A,  B, 
C,  D,  E.  Hand  D  has  been  claimed  as  Shakespeare's. 
Hand  A  is  Chettle's  and  E  Dekker's.  Hand  B  remains 
unknown,  but  may  conceivably  be  Heywood's.  Hand  C 
is  that  of  a  stage-reviser.  He  transcribes  and  fits  in  addi* 
tions,  but  probably  contributes  none  himself.  And  he 
makes  corrections  and  alterations,  both  in  the  original 
scenes  and  in  the  additions,  particularly  D's.  John  a  Kent 
and  S.T.M.  must  at  some  time  have  been  preserved  to- 
gether. The  same  leaf  of  a  vellum  manuscript  has  been 
used  to  make  covers  for  them,  and  the  title  on  each  cover 
is  apparently  in  C's  hand.  A  'V  thomas  Thomas*  on  that 
of  John  a  Kent  is  an  unassignable  scribble.  But  the  second 
hand  of  that  manuscript  may  be  C's.  He  also  wrote  the 
plots  of  Seven  Deadly  Sins  and  Fortune's  Tennis.2  The 
Second  Maiden's  Tragedy  is  in  the  hand  of  a  professional 
scribe.  He  inserted  some  small  additions  on  slips,  and 
there  are  corrections  in  a  second  hand,  probably  the 
author's,  and  stage-directions  in  a  third.  There  are  also 
a  few  corrections  by  Sir  George  Buck,  whose  allowance 
of  the  play  'with  the  reformations'  is  endorsed.  Some 
conjectural  ascriptions  of  authorship,  which  follow,  are  of 
much  later  date.3  The  play  belonged  to  the  King's  men. 
Sir  John  Van  Olden  Barnavelt  is  also  in  a  professional  hand, 
identified  by^  Mr,  F.  P.  Wilson  with  that  of  Ralph  Crane, 
who  claims  in  his  Worker  of  Mercy  (1621)  to  have  had 
employment  for  his  pen  from  the  King's  men.  He  seems 
to  have  acted  as  a  stage-reviser,  making  alterations  and 
additions,  and  not  merely  as  a  scribe.  The  history  of  the 
play  is  known.  It  was  produced  in  August  1619,  prohibited 

1  Cf.  p,  499.  *  Cf.  p.  124.  3  EB».  Stag?)  iv.  45, 


i  io  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  Chap.  IV 

by  the  Bishop  of  London,  but  finally  sanctioned.   The 
company  was  the  King's.1  The  authorship  has  been  con- 
jecturally  ascribed  to  Fletcher  and  Massinger.  It  is  pos- 
sible, therefore,  that  the  manuscript  represents  a  version 
revised  to  meet  criticism.     One  cancel  leaf  and  two 
additional  slips,  in  the  scribe's  hand,  have  been  inserted. 
Some  passages,  however,  are  marked  by  the  censor,  and 
one  of  these  is  initialled  G[eorge]  B[uck].    There  is  no 
allowance  endorsed.   The  Welsh  Embassador  seems  to  be 
wholly  in  one  hand,  although  the  punctuation  has  been 
corrected  and  some  marginal  additions  made  after  the  text 
was  written.  The  chronology  of  a  prophecy  suggests  a 
date  about  1623.  The  same  main  hand,  probably  that  of 
a  scribe,  recurs  in  The  Parliament  of  Love,  and  the  condi- 
tion of  the  manuscripts  indicates  that  they  have  been  pre- 
served together.  Both  may  have  been  written  for  the  Lady 
Elizabeth's  men,  for  whom  Herbert  licensed  the  Parlia- 
ment on  3  November  1624.   This  also  has  some  correc- 
tions, of  a  literary  character.  An  endorsed  allowance  has 
evidently  been  cut  away.   Believe  as  Tou  List  was  dis- 
allowed by  Herbert  on  1 1  January  1631  and  allowed  for 
the  King's  men,  according  to  the  Office  Book,  on  May  7. 
The  manuscript  is  in  Massinger's  hand.  He  has  evidently 
revised  the  play  in  the  interval,  partly  transcribing  and 
partly  rewriting  the  original  text.  Some  names  left  stand- 
ing in  error  show  that  the  plot  has  been  ingeniously  trans- 
ferred from  Sebastian  of  rortugal  to  Antiochus  of  Syria. 
A  second  writer,  evidently  a  stage-reviser,  has  made  a  few 
alterations  and  appended  a  prologue  and  an  epilogue  in  an 
English  hand,  and  has  added  other  alterations,  a  title  on 
a  wrapper,  and  a  list  of  properties  in  an  Italian  hand. 
Only  one  passage,  unfortunately  mutilated  in  the  manu- 
script, was  'reformed'  by  Herbert,  whose  allowance,  here 
dated  May  6,  is  endorsed.  The  stage-reviser  was  also  the 
scribe  of  The  Honest  Man's  Fortune  and  B.onduca,  but 
Professor  Baldwin's  inference  that  he  was  John  Rhodes 
can  only  be  regarded  as  extremely  hazardous.2    The 

1  Gfldersleevc  114,  from  S.PJ)om.  Joe.  I,  ex,  18,  37. 
*  Cf.  pp.  in,  125. 


Chap.  IV  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  in 

manuscripts  of  Edmond  Ironside  and  Thomas  of  Woodstock 
may  belong,  as  the  composition  of  the  plays  more  clearly 
does,  to  the  sixteenth  century.  The  main  hand  of  each 
is  probably  that  of  a  professional  scribe,  with  stage  correc- 
tions and  additions  of  different  dates  and  in  more  than 
one  hand,  which  point  to  seventeenth-century  revivals. 
Edmond  Ironside  carries  no  evidence  of  submission  to  the 
Master  of  the  Revels,  Thomas  of  Woodstock  seems  to  have 
been  marked  by  him,  and  a  lost  final  leaf  may  have  borne 
an  allowance. 

A  few  other  manuscripts,  although  not  fully  repro- 
duced, have  received  some  expert  examination.  The  Honest 
Man's  Fortune  is  one  of  the  transcripts  allowed  by  Herbert 
for  the  King's  men  in  place  of  lost  'books',  and  has  his 
endorsement  of  8  February  1624,  and  a  few 'reformations'. 
Another  hand  has  made  a  few  alterations  for  stage  pur- 
poses. At  the  end  is  written  what  may  be  a  mere  scribble, 
but  may  be  the  signature  'Jhon'  of  the  main  scribe.1 
The  Faithful  Friends  is  in  the  hand  of  a  scribe.  There 
are  corrections  and  alterations  in  more  than  one 
hand.  One  seems  to  have  been  concerned  to  meet  the 
views  of  a  censor,  but  no  allowance  is  endorsed.  An  in- 
serted scene  has  been  ascribed  without  justification  to  the 
hand  of  Massinger.  The  company  is  unknown  and  the 
date  uncertain,  but  probably  not  earlier  than  i62i.2 
Edmond  Ironside  and  Thomas  of  Woodstock  come  from  a 
collection  of  fifteen  pieces,  probably  made  by^  the  younger 
William  Cartwright,  who  had  been  an  actor  in  the  King's 
Revels  company  of  162 9-3 7.*  He  became  a  bookseller 
during  the  Civil  War,  and  may  have  obtained  plays^from 
various  sources.  Several  plays  of  the  collection  are  linked 
by  revising  hands  and  actor-names,  but  too  obscurely  to 

1  EUx.  Stage,  iii.  227;  A.  Dyce,  Oliphant,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  360, 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  iii.  331$  C.  J.  526;  W.  W.  Greg  in  4  Library  ix. 

Sisson  in  R.E.S.  i.  422  and  Believe  as  207. 

Toil  List,  xvi;  W.  W.   Greg  in  4  »  F.  S.  Boas,  Sh.  and  the  Uniwer- 

Library,  vi.  150;  cf.  p.  107.  sities,  107;  E.  Boswell,  Toung  Mr. 

*  EKx.  Stage,  iii.  232,-  A.  Dyce,  Cartwright  (1929,  M.L.R.  xxiv.  125)5 

Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  iv.  1995  C.  J.  cf.  Bibl.  Note. 
Sisson  in  R.E.S.  L  427$    £.  H.  C. 


ii2  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  Chap.  IV 

determine  a  common  stage-history  for  them.  Some  of 
the  actors  are  found  among  the  Revels  company  in  1635. 
The  Two  Noble  Ladies  was  played  by  an  ephemeral 
Revels  company  in  1622-3.  The  Captives  was  licensed 
for  the  Lady  Elizabeth's  by  Herbert  in  1624.  The  Lady 
Mother  has  an  endorsed  licence  of  15  October  1635  by 
William  Blagrave.  An  allusion  to  a  'boy  at  the  Whyte- 

,  were  at  Salisbury  Court  in  1635.     Herbert  himself  en- 


dorsed The  Launching  of  the  Mary  with  a  licence  on  2  7  June 
1633,  but  made  considerable  'reformations*.  This  manu- 
script and  that  of  The  Captives  appear  to  be  in  the  hands 
of  the  authors;  those  of  The  Lady  Mother  and  Dick  of 
Devonshire  are  probably,  and  that  of  The  Poor  Man's 
Comfort  Certainly,  in  those  of  scribes.1  The  Escapes  of 
Jupiter  is  in  Heywood's  hand,  and  represents  a  revision 
in  one  play  of  his  own  Golden  and  Silver  Ages.  Some 
broken  lines  and  other  irregularities  are  the  result.  The 
direction  'A  song  Iff  you  will'  shows  that  the  author  had 
the  stage  in  mind.  The  Dering  manuscript  of  Henry  IV 
and  those  of  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  and  Twelfth  Night 
formerly  owned  by  Halliwell-Phillipps  probably  rest  on 
the  printed  texts.  They  may  have  been  prepared  for  use 
in  performances,  but  they  have  not  been  subjected  to 
recent  expert  examination.  In  that  of  Twelfth  Night  the 
names  of  characters  were  marked  at  points  where  the 
actors  were  needed  to  be  ready. 

All  the  manuscripts  so  far  considered  were  intended  to 
serve  a  theatrical  purpose.  They  have  many  features  in 
common,  but  the  earlier  ones  suggest  that  a  distinctively 
theatrical  style  was  a  matter  of  gradual  development.*  The 
fully  reproduced  plays  are  all  written  on  both  sides  of  folio 
paper,  in  fairly  even  columns,  with  wide  side-margins. 
I  he  number  of  lines  to  a  page  varies  considerably,  as  be- 
tween play  and  play,  and  sometimes  within  a  play.  The 


V*'  r*  I!?"™*"*         a  Thmas  of  Weodstoc*  was  issued 


u.  ax*. 


Chap.  IV  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  113 

paper  has  sometimes  been  lightly  folded  before  use,  to 
facilitate  alignment.  Prose  and  long  verse  lines  often  ex- 
tend into  the  right  margin.  The  original  .stage-directions 
are  either  centred,  or  placed  in  a  margin.   This  is  most 
usually  the  right  margin,  as  in  prints.    But  sometimes 
entrances  are  kept  by  themselves  in  the  left  margin.  Mar- 
ginal directions  are  often  enclosed,  wholly  or  partly,  by 
rules,  or  marked  off  from  the  text  by  a  dash  or  virgule,  or 
brackets.  In  Bamavelt  an  inverted  virgule  in  the  left  mar- 
gin seems  to  call  attention  to  them.    The  speeches  are 
separated  by  rules  of  varying  length.    In  Ironside,  they 
are  an  addition,  and  only  continue  through  part  of  the 
play.  The  speech-prefixes  are  placed  in  the  left  margin. 
The  names  are  given  in  full  in  John  a  Kent,  and  generally 
in  Believe  and  Ironside.   In  the  other  plays  they  are  more 
often  abbreviated  and  followed  by  a  colon  or  full  stop. 
Ironside  sometimes  adds  a  virgule.    The  main  script  is 
always  English,  although  it  may  have  an  admixture  of 
Italianized  forms.  But  personal  names  and  foreign  words 
are  normally,  although  far  from  consistently,  written  in 
Italian  script.  This  is  used  also,  in  Barnavelt  and  2  M.T., 
for  some  other  important  words.  The  practice  with  regard 
to  stage-directions  and  speech-prefixes  varies.    English 
script  is  normal  for  both  in  John  a  Kent  and  Ironside,  al- 
though the  latter  often  substitutes  Italian.  In  S.T.M.  the 
stage-directions  are  English.  The  prefixes  are  irregular; 
the  generic  names  tend  to  be  English,  and  the  personal 
names  Italian.    In  most  of  the  other  plays  Italian  is  nor- 
mal, both  for  directions  and  prefixes.    Believe  is  excep- 
tional, in  that  Massinger  makes  no  use  of  Italian  script 
for  any  purpose.    The  writing,  of  authors,  as  well  as 
professional  scribes,  is  generally  careful  and  legible.  Hey- 
wood's  hand  in  Captives,  as  elsewhere,  is  bad.  The  initial 
letters  of  verse  lines  are  minuscule,  with  some  admixture  of 
majuscule  in  John  a  Kent,  S.T.M.,  and  Ironside.  Massinger 
generally  begins  a  fresh  sentence  within  a  line  by  a  minus- 
cule, but  this  is  abnormal.  Abbreviations  are  employed, 
mainly  for  very  common  words.  The  ampersand  is  used 
sparsely  in  John  a  Kent,  2  M.T.,  and  Barnavelt,  and  more 


3142- I 


H4  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  Chap.  IV 

often  in  Welsh  Embassador,  Parliament  of  Love,  and  Be- 
lieve \  the  £  in  Ironside,  2  M.T.,  Welsh  Embassador,  and 
Parliament  of  Love\  and  old  conventional  signs  for  -us  in 
Ironside  and  for  -que  in  Believe.   In  2  M.T.  such  signs 
survive  as  mere  flourishes.   The  amount  of  punctuation 
varies.  There  is  hardly  any  in  Ironside,  Welsh  Embassador, 
and  Parliament  of  Love;  it  is  light  in  Believe,  heavy  in 
John  a  Kent,  adequate  in  the  rest.  The  period  ends  com- 
plete and  self-contained  sentences;  the  colon  clauses,  but 
also,  rather  more  freely  than  in  modern  writing,  sentences 
linked  in  sense  to  what  follows.    The  semicolon  is  rare  in 
the  earlier  plays,  probably  more  common  than  the  colon 
in  Believe.  In  John  a  Kent  and  S.T.M.  a  colon  often  sug- 
gests a  pause,  longer  than  the  sense  would  justify,  at  the 
end  of  the  penultimate  line  of  a  speech.  Normally  there  is 
a  tendency  to  omit  stops  at  the  ends  of  lines.  In  2  M.T. 
a  turned  comma  is  used  as  an  exclamation  mark,  and  is 
difficult  to  distinguish  from  the  interrogation  mark.    In 
S.T.M.,  Ironside,  and  Welsh  Embassador,  a  heavy  stop  is 
sometimes  replaced  or  supplemented  by  a  virgule.  A  dash 
is  preferred  in  2  M.T.,  which  also  uses  the  dash  freely  at 
changes  of  address  and  speech-ends.    Round  brackets 
serve  as  parentheses,  to  enclose  vocatives  and  explanatory 
phrases.   They  are  rare  in  the  earlier  plays,  but  tend  to 
become  excessive,  from  a  merely  literary  point  of  view, 
later.   Passages  intended  for  omission  are  generally  in- 
dicated by  a  vertical  line  down  the  left  margin.  It  may  or 
may  not  have  a  short  arm-piece  between  the  lines  at  top 
and  bottom,  turning  it  into  a  bracket.  Sometimes  they  are, 
concurrently  or  alternatively,  scored  over  with  vertical, 
diagonal,  or  horizontal  lines.    For  the  most  part,  they 
remain  legible.    Small  corrections,  if  not  made  currente 
calamo,  are  interlineated,  often  but  not  always  with  a  caret 
mark.  For  longer  additions  or  alterations  two  methods  are 
available.  They  may  be  written  in  the  right  margin.  Here 
there  is  room  for  from  one  to  four  verse  lines,  placed  at 
full  length  and  at  right  angles  to  the  main  text.1   Some- 
times, however,  the  writing  is  parallel  to  the  text,  and  then 

1  John  a  Kent,  1525  Barntwelt,  724,  2334. 


Chap. IV  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  115 

verse  lines  have  to  be  divided,  and  look  like  prose.1  Alter- 
natively, the  writing  may  be  upon  separate  pieces  of  paper. 
These,  if  complete  leaves,  are  inserted  between  the  original 
leaves.2  If  mere  slips,  they  are  fastened  over  these.3  The 
exact  place  at  which  they  are  to  be  read  in  may  be  indicated 
by  a  hand,  asterisk,  or  similar  sign,  or  by  a  'cue1.  Small 
crosses  in  the  left  margin  seem  to  be  indications,  generally 
by  the  censor,  that  particular  lines  require  alteration  or  at 
least  reconsideration. 

The  censor's  dealings  with  the  manuscripts  are  con- 
sistent with  our  other  records  of  his  activities.  Six  of  the 
plays  bear  or  bore  his  allowance  at  the  end,  in  three  cases 
with  warnings  for  the  observance  of  his  'reformations'. 
Barnavelt,  on  the  other  hand,  although  it  has  been  before 
him,  has  no  allowance.  I  think  we  must  infer  that  a 
further  submission  would  have  been  necessary.  And 
surely  this  would  have  been  so  with  Sir  Thomas  More>  if 
the  revision  had  ever  been  completed.  It  is  hardly  pos- 
sible to  hold  with  Dr.  Greg,  that  Tilney's  note  at  the 
beginning  was  even  *a  very  conditional  licence*.  It  must 
be  added  that  in  some  of  the  six  and  also  in  some  other 
plays  there  are  passages  which,  although  not  clearly 
marked  in  the  censor's  own  hand,  seem  to  have  been 
altered  in  order  to  obviate  his  objections.  It  is  of  course 
not  always  possible,  unless  there  is  a  recognizable  differ- 
ence of  ink,  to  say  to  whom  a  mere  deletion  should  be 
ascribed.  The  censor's  main  preoccupation  is  naturally 
with  politics.  Believe  a$  Ton  List  had  undergone  such 
careful  revision  that  there  was  practically  nothing  left  for 
him  to  do.  Barnavelt,  too,  may  have  already  been  revised. 
The  original  version  may  have  laid  more  stress  on  Barna- 
velt's  Arminianism  than  the  Bishop  of  London  could  ap- 
prove. But  in  the  later  one  Sir  George  Buck  found  that 
the  Prince  of  Orange,  as  in  effect  a  foreign  sovereign,  was 
'too  much  presented',  and  required  a  not  very  effective 

1  S.TM.  610,  638,  6475    2  M.T,     Faithful  Friends,  iv.  4. 
2260;  Barnavelt,  1028,  1063,  1106.  »  S.T.M.  Additions  III,  V$  2  M.T. 

*  S.T.M.  Additions  I,  II,  IV,  VI5  238,  248, 1700, 1724, 21885  Launching 
Barnawelt%  763,  1403,  1536,  2919$  of  the  Mary. 

I  2 


n6  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  Chap.  IV 

toning  down  of  passages  which  criticized  or  barely  named 
him,  or  exalted  his  opponent.1  One  of  these  might  per- 
haps have  been  taken  to  be  an  indirect  reflection  upon 
James.2  In  Sir  Thomas  More  Tilney  was  mainly  concerned 
to  eliminate  any  encouragement  to  contemporary  agita- 
tion against  French  and  Dutch  settlers  in  London.  But 
More's  reasons  for  resigning  the  Lord  Chancellorship 
must  also  be  'all  altered',  although  one  would  have  thought 
that  the  original  author  had  left  them  obscure  enough. 
The  Launching  of  the  Mary  offended,  because  of  allusions 
to  a  Dutch  injustice  towards  English  subjects  in  Amboyna 
and  to  increases  in  the  English  navy  and  munitions  of  war, 
at  a  moment  when  Charles  desired  to  show  a  fair  face 
towards  Holland,  in  order  to  cover  his  veering  in  the 
direction  of  a  Spanish  alliance.  Attacks  on  Catholics  and 
on  a  'vicious  vicar*  must  go  out,  presumably  to  avoid 
offence  to  Henrietta  Maria  and  to  the  ecclesiastics.  But 
the  censor  will  also  curb  the  licence  of  dramatists  in 
criticizing  social  abuses.  That,  in  view  of  the  proclivities 
of  James,  a  wicked  king  in  The  Faithful  Friends  had  better 
not  have  a  favourite,  was  perhaps  obvious  enough,  even 
before  the  play  was  submitted.  But  both  in  The  Second 
Maiden's  Tragedy  and  The  Honest  Man's  Fortune  there  is  a 
constant  excision,  not  merely  of  reflections  upon  kings  and 
their  ministers,  but  of  allusions  to  the  follies  of  gallants, 
the  lusts  of  women,  and  the  corruptions  of  lawyers  and 
officials,  which  shows  a  growing  sensitiveness  in  high 
places.3  Milton  was  not  perhaps  much  concerned  to 
defend  the  pens  of  dramatists,  who  too  often  made  capital 
of  what  they  professed  to  condemn.  But  the  time  for  the 
protest  of  the  Areopagitica  was  coming.  The  Act  of  Abuses 
itself  probably  left  little  real  profanity  for  the  Master  of  the 
Revels  to  tackle*  Herbert  seems  to  have  thought  Buck  lax, 
and  indeed  some  increase  of  rigidity  is  apparent.  In  The 
Second  Maiden's  Tragedy,  'Troth'  and  'Faith'  are  allowed 
to  stand,  while  'Life'  is  meticulously  cut  out.  In  The 

1  Barruwelt,  36,  51,  281,  679,  724,         s  Many  of  the  deletion-marks  in 
-  the  MSS.  of  F.F.  and  H.M.F.  are  un- 

Ibid.  2434.  noted  in  Dyce's  edition. 


Chap.  IV  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  117 

Launching  of  the  Mary,  according  to  Dr.  Boas,  both  'Yfaith* 
and  'Troth',  as  well  as  '  'Slife'  are  banned,  together  with 
'every  religious  reference  or  expression,  however  inno- 
cent'. A  comparison  of  the  manuscript  of  The  Honest 
Man's  Fortune  with  the  Folio  texts  of  the  play  proves- rather 
interesting  in  this  respect.  The  word  'God'  occurs  rather 
often  in  the  text  of  1647,  which  presumably  rests  upon 
the  author's  original.  In  anticipation  of  Herbert,  the 
scribe  of  the  manuscript  has  almost  always  replaced  it  by 
'Heaven',  and  the  same  substitution  is  even  more  scrupu- 
lously carried  out  in  the  text  of  1 679.  On  the  other  hand, 
many  minor  asseverations,  such  as  'By  my  troth',  to  which 
Herbert  does  not  here  seem  to  have  taken  exception,  remain 
in  the  manuscript,  but  are  represented,  together  with  some 
coarse  but  not  exactly  profane  expressions,  by  dashes  in 
both  the  printed  texts. 

It  is  upon  the  operations  .of  the  stage-reviser  that  the 
manuscripts  are  most  illuminating.  One  may  reasonably 
identify  him  with  the  book-keeper,  carrying  out,  maybe, 
on  some  points,  instructions  received  from  the  company  or 
an  authoritative  member  of  it.  He  appears  in  nearly  all 
the  manuscripts,  to  a  varying  extent;  perhaps  most  con- 
spicuously in  Believe  as  Tou  List.  And  the  services  which 
he  renders  are  multifarious.  In  Welsh  Embassador  and 
Honest  Man's  Fortune  he  may  himself  be  the  scribe.  In 
Sir  Thomas  More  he  certainly  copies  additions  by  divers 
hands,  and  fits  them  to  their  places  in.  the  original  text. 
He  may  add  a  title-page  or  a  prologue  and  epilogue.1  One 
would  infer  from  Herbert's  Office  Book  that  it  was  his 
special  function  to  observe  the  requirements  of  the  censor- 
ship. This  is  less  obvious  from  the  manuscripts.  Mere 
deletions,  as  already  noted,  are  difficult  to  assign,  and  sub- 
stantial 'reformations'  seem  to  be  generally  the  work  of 
the  censor  himself  or  of  the  author.  Nor  is  it  clear  whether 
the  book-keeper's  general  overhaul  of  a  play  preceded  or 
followed  its  submission  to  the  Master.  Here  his  object  is 
to  bring  the  manuscript  into  a  state  in  which  it  can  serve 
as  an  effective  guide  to  an  actual  performance.  Authors 

'  J.  a  K.,  S.T.M.  (t.ps.)j  BeUeve  (t.p.  and  pro!.,  epil.)- 


ii8  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  Chap.  IV 

are  not  always  very  practical  persons.  The  book-keeper 
may  have  to  add  missing  speech-prefixes  or  alter  erroneous 
ones.1  Incidentally,  he  sometimes  revises  what  he  takes, 
rightly  or  wrongly,  to  be  oversights  in  the  text  itself,2  He 
applies  deletion-marks  to  passages  which  it  has  been  de- 
cided to  cut.  He  looks  to  the  intervals  by  which  the  action 
is  to  be  broken.  Here  the  practice  of  the  authors  is  not 
uniform.  Sir  John  Van  Olden  Barnaveltznd  Believe  as  Ton 
List  are  fully  divided  into  acts  and  scenes.  Second  Maiden's 
Tragedy,  Welsh  Embassador,  and  Parliament  of  Love  have 
acts  only.  So  has  John  a  Kent,  with  an  indication  at  the  be- 
ginning of  each  act  that  it  is  scena  prima.  Sir  Thomas  More 
and  Edmond  Ironside  have  no  original  divisions.  The  book- 
keeper does  not  seem  to  be  interested  in  scenes;  it  looks  as 
if  they  were  only  literary  divisions  and  of  no  importance  in 
representation.  But  he  is  in  acts.  He  marks  them  for 
himself  in  Edmond  Ironside  \  and  in  Believe  as  Tou  List, 
while  he  sometimes  cuts  out  the  scene  indications,  he 
keeps  those  for  acts,  and  notes  two  of  them  as  'long*, 
evidently  thinking  of  an  'act'  as  an  interval,  rather  than 
as  a  section  of  a  play.  3 

As  one  might  expect,  the  book-keeper  is  much  con- 
cerned with  the  stage-directions.  These  are  clearly  in  the 
main  the  work  of  the  authors.  Unless  they  are  mere  sub- 
stantival, participial,  or  adverbial  marginalia,  they  are 
generally  couched  in  the  indicative  mood.  Very  rarely  they 
are  in  the  imperative.4  I  do  not  think  one  need  regard  the 
imperative  as  a  special  note  of  the  book-keeper.  The 
habits  of  authors  differ,  but  in  the  manuscripts  the  stage- 
directions  tend  to  be  pretty  full,  perhaps  particularly  in 
the  earlier  plays.  The  fullest  of  all  are  in  Sir  Thomas  More. 
Processional  entries,  spectacular  episodes,  and  fights  are 
often  described  with  much  elaboration.  The  author  has  a 
double  purpose  to  serve  by  his  stage-directions.  They  are 
not  all  strictly  necessary  for  the  conduct  of  an  actual  per- 

1  E.g.   Be&ve,   704,   709,    1989,  >  C.  J.  Sisson  in  Belteue,  xxiii. 

2023,  2081.  4  y,  a  jf.f  73$,  'look  in  his  g 

E.gr,  S.T.M.  (cf.  p.  502);  BtUtaf,  EJ.  955,  'Sound  Drufe  w*  in'. 
>  *335- 


Chap.  IV  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  119 

formance.  They  are  in  part  designed  to  explain  the  struc- 
ture of  his  play  to  the  company  and  to  make  clear  the  way 
in  which  he  wishes  it  to  be  staged.  When  his  characters 
first  enter,  he  often  adds  to  their  names  indications  of  their 
social  status,  or  of  their  relationships  to  other  characters, 
such  as  we  find  in  a  modern  theatre-programme.  Some- 
times even  an  important  character  is  left  with  a  mere 
generic  description  and  no  name  at  all.1  He  makes  notes 
of  the  costumes  to  be  worn  and  the  properties  to  be 
carried.2  He  gives  the  ordering  of  his  entries.  Personages 
must  come  in  'severally'  or  'aloofe',  and  when  a  number 
enter  together,  he  is  careful  to  prescribe  a  grouping.3  He 
provides  for  the  use  of  the  structural  features  of  the  stage; 
for  'one  door*  and  'the  other  door",  for  'discoveries'  by  the 
alcove,  for  appearances  'above*  and  'on  the  walles'.4  More 
rarely  he  specifies  the  locality  of  a  scene.s  And  to  a  greater 
or  less  degree  he  gives  directions,  often  in  the  margin,  for 
the  movements  and  gestures  of  the  actors;  even  for  their 
attitudes  and  facial  expressions.6  Many  of  the  points  with 
which  he  is  dealing  will  of  course  be  settled  in  the  tiring- 
room  or  at  the  rehearsals,  long  before  the  performance 

1  E.g.  the  Tyrant  and  the  Lady  (as  in   Sessions)   sit  the  L.  Maior, 

in  2  M.T.  Justice  Suresbte,  and  other  Justices, 

a  E.g.  J.aK.  214,  'Enter  lohn  a  Sheriffe  Moore  and  the  other  Sherife 

Kent  like  an  aged  Hermit',  369,  'one  sitting   by,   Smart  is   the   Plaintife, 

drest  like  a  Moore,  wtt  a  Tun  painted  Lifter  the  prisoner  at  the  barre'. 
with  yellow  oker,  another  with  a         *  E.g.   ?.  a  K.   137,  848,  S.T.M. 

Porrenger  full  of  water  and  a  pen  in  1862,  E.I.  813  (doors);  J.aK.  780, 

it',  780,  'Enter  an  antique  queintly  w&,  S.T.M.  i  (ends  of  stage)  5  S.T.M. 

disguysde';  S.T.M.  410,  'Enter  ...  104  (arras);  Barnawelt,  1883  (study); 

DollinashirtofMaile,  a  head  piece,  2    M.T.    1725    (tomb    discovered); 

sword  and  Buckler',  955,  'the  Lady  Barnatuelt,  2144,  Believe,  1958, 1983 

Maioresse  in  Scarlet';  2  M.T.  1879,  (above);    Barnawelt,   887,  E.I.    872 

'Enter  Gouianus  in  black,  a  booke  in  (walls). 

his  hand,  his  page  carrying  a  Torche         *  S.T.M.  1412,  'as  in  his  house  at 

before  hym';  Barnavelt,  2810,  'Enter  Chelsey',  1729,  'as  in  his  chamber  in 

. . .  w*h  a  Coffin  &  a  Gibbett';  Believe,  the  Tower'. 

i,  'in  philosophers  habits',  2322,  'his         6  E.g.    S.T,M.    240,    'shrugging 

head  shaude  in  the  habit  of  a  slaue'.  gladly',  1068,  'florishing  his  dagger', 

3  E.g.    J.  a  K.    604,    'Enter  the  1237,   'with  great  reference',  1575, 

Earle  of  Chester  in  his  night  gowne,  'pondering  to  him  selfe' ;  2  M.T.  821, 

and    Shrimpe   Mowing   aloofe    of,  'Enter  .  .  .  sadly',  1657,  'Enter  .  .  , 

some  seruaunts  wto  him';  S.T.M.  104,  wondrous    discontedly';     E.I.    512, 

'An  Arras  is  drawne,  and  behinde  it  'hee  shewes  his  tongue'. 


120 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  Chap.  TV 

takes  place.  On  the  other  hand,  he  is  often  lacking  in 

gecision,  particularly  with  regard  to  supernumeraries, 
e  asks  for  'lords'  or  'officers'  or  'attendants',  and  does 
not  specify  how  many.  He  may  give  a  deliberate  option.1 
Crowds,  even  when  their  members  are  elsewhere  specified, 
come  and  go  under  a  group  designation.2  Quite  important 
characters  may  be  handled  in  this  vague  way.3  Evidently 
much  is  left  for  the  management  to  dispose  as  it  will 
or  can. 

The  book-keeper  revises  the  author's  directions  freely. 
He  is  careful  to  add  missing  entries.  He  does  not  trouble 
about  exits,  and  many,  clearly  required  by  the  action,  re- 
main unnoted.  Actors  might  be  trusted  to  find  their  own 
way  off  the  stage.  But  it  was  important  that  they  should 
enter  at  the  right  moment.  The  author  may  fail  to  secure 
this.  It  is  his  tendency  to  place  an  entry  just  before  the 
first  speech  of  the  character  concerned.  The  cautious 
book-keeper  sometimes  shifts  it  to  an  earlier  point,  so  as 
to  allow  time  for  the  character  to  cross  the  stage,4  He 
makes  additional  notes  for  the  introduction  of  properties.5 
And  he  provides  much  more  fully  than  the  author  for  the 
musical  and  other  noises  to  be  made  behind  the  stage, 
often  specifying^  the  nature  of  the  movement  to  be 
sounded,  or  the  instruments  to  be  used.6  By  the  time  he 
has  got  to  work,  the  play  has  been  cast,  and  the  resources 
of  the  theatre  wardrobe  explored.  He  can  therefore 
clear  up  the  author's  uncertainties,  and  be  explicit  as  to 
the  number  of  supernumeraries.  He  tends  to  economy, 
appointing  one  or  two  only,  where  the  author  would  have 
liked  more,7  And  for  the  same  reason  he  occasionally 


:  S.T.M,  453,  'Enter  three  or  foure 
Prentises*,  954,  'so  many  Aldermen 
as  may*;  y.aK.  1098,  'pkying  on 
some  instrument*. 

>  E.g.  y.  a  K.  334,  'Enter  . . .  w* 
his  crewe  of  Clownes1,  554,  'w^  their 
Consort',  648,  'his  trayne'j  S.T.M. 
411,  'a  crewe  attending*;  2  M.T. 
1657,  'nobles  afarr  of;  E.L  104, 
'Enter  a  Companye  of  cuntrymen 
makeinge  a  noyse*. 


3  y.  a  K.  581,  'the  Bridegroomes 
come  foorth';  Believe,  1176,  'exevnt 
Carthaginians*. 

*  J.  a  K.,  Barnavelt,  Believe  show 
this  feature. 

*  Barnavelt,    1184,    1610,     2159, 
2810;  Believe,   i,  301,   1185,  1793, 
2367. 

6y.  aK.,    2    M.T.,    Barnavelt, 
Believe,  EJ.  show  this  feature. 
7  Barnavelt,  334,  864. 


Chap.  IV  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  121 

cuts  out  a  small  part  for  which  the  author  has  definitely 
provided.1  When  he  has  to  rewrite  a  stage-direction,  he 
often  abbreviates  it,  leaving  out  the  descriptive  notes  of 
relationship,  costume,  and  the  like,  which  are  by  now 
superfluous.2  There  are  various  indications  that  the  book- 
keeper is  considering  the  manuscript  as  one  to  be  used  for 
a  prompt-copy.  He  notes  the  points  at  which  properties 
and  the  like  are  required.  But  sometimes  he  also  marks 
the  points  in  advance,  at  which  he  must  call  for  them  to 
be  made  ready  in  the  tiring-room.3  Calls  for  particular 
actors,  perhaps  elsewhere  occupied,  to  be  brought  to  the 
door  of  entry,  or  for  stage  attendants  to  take  up  the  post 
assigned  to  them,  are  similarly  inserted.4  It  is  also  note- 
worthy, that  while  author's  directions  are  generally  in  the 
right  margin,  those  of  the  book-keeper  are  generally  in 
the  left,  as  if  that  was  the  place  in  which  they  would  most 
easily  attract  attention  during  a  performance.5  The  ex- 
ceptionally meticulous  book-keeper  of  Believe  as  You  List 
seems  to  have  transferred  some  directions  in  this  way, 
when  there  was  no  other  obvious  reason  for  altering  them. 
In  Welsh  Embassador>  where  book-keeper  and  scribe  may 
have  been  one,  the  original  directions  are  in  the  left  mar- 
gin. A  similar  care  for  practical  convenience  must  explain 
the  pains  with  which  the  book-keeper  of  Believe  as  You 
List  transfers  a  bit  of  dialogue  relating  to  a  song  from  the 
top  of  one  page  to  the  bottom  of  another  overleaf,  so  that 
it  may  be  all  before  him  at  a  glance.6  Finally,  and  again 

1  J.  a  K.  608, 1295$  Barnavelt,  231,  (for  830),  1824,  'Gascoine:  &  Hubert 

333,  459,  601,  820,  1182,  1215,  1817,  below:  ready  to  open  the  Trap  doore 

2159,  2540;  Believe,  618.  for   M*    Taylor    (for    1931),  1877, 

*  E.g.  Believe,  1985,  'Ent:  laylor  'Antiochus  ready:  vnder  the  stage' 
(w«*  bread  &  water)'  for  'Enter  laylor,  (for  1931),  1968,  'Harry:  Willson:  & 
with  browne  bread,  &  a  woodden  Boy  ready  for  the  song  at  y«  Arras' 
dishe  of  water'.  (for  2022),  2823,  'Be  ready:  y«  .2. 

3  Believe,  654,  'Table  ready:  &  .6.  Marchantes:    wm    Pen:    Curtis:    & 

chaires  to  sett  out'  (for  732),  982,  'the  Garde'  (for  2862).    In  Welsh  Emb. 

great   booke:   of  Accomptes  ready'  nearly  all  entries  have  a  marginal  'bee 

(for    1115),  2378,    'All  the  swords  redy',  normally  from  twenty  to  thirty 

ready'  (for  2717  and  2722);   Welsh  lines  before  they  occur. 

Smb.  1934,  'sett  out  a  Table'  (for  *  J.  a  K.,  S.T.M.,  2  M.T.,  Believe, 

1962).  E.I.  show  this  feature. 

*  Believe,  662,  'Mr  Hobs:  calld  vp'  6  Believe,  2023. 


122  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  Chap.  V 

to  a  varying  extent,  the  casting  of  a  play  gets  noted  in  the 
manuscript.  Against  the  name  of  a  character,  the  book- 
keeper writes  the  name,  or  more  often  an  abbreviation  of 
the  name,  of  the  actor  who  is  to  play  it.  As  a  rule  only 
the  smaller  parts  are  so  treated,  and  often  by  no  means  all 
of  these.1  It  is  very  convenient  for  the  modern  scholar, 
since  evidence  for  the  dating  of  plays,  or  the  assignment 
of  them  to  the  right  companies,  is  thus  furnished.  But  the 
book-keeper  was  not  thinking  of  posterity.  We  must  sup- 
pose that  these  notes,  too,  were  made  to  help  him  in 
securing  the  smoothness  of  entries,  and  that  he  did  not 
trouble  to  make  them  when  he  felt  able  to  trust  his 
memory  as  to  the  casting. 

The  book-keeper  does  not  trouble  about  the  author's 
marginal  directions  for  action  and  gesture.  If  they  were 
valuable,  they  were  probably  transferred  to  the  actors' 
'parts'.  These  were  important  subsidiary  documents,  to 
which  there  are  many  references.2  We  learn  from  Her- 
bert that  the  oversight  of  their  preparation  rested  with  the 
book-keeper.  Unfortunately  only  one  Elizabethan  'part' 
has  survived.  This  is  the  part  of  Orlando,  as  played  by 
Edward  Alleyn,  possibly  in  1592,  in  Robert  Greene's 
Orlando  Furioso.  It  has  been  reproduced  and  carefully 
studied  by  Dr.  Greg.3  It  is  now  mutilated,  and  preserved 
in  separate  leaves,  without  a  tithe.  About  three-quarters  of 
it  survive.  According  to  Dr.  Greg's  reconstruction,  it 
originally  formed  a  continuous  roll,  some  17  feet  long 
and  6  inches  wide,  made  up  of  14  half-sheets  of  paper 
divided  lengthways,  and  pasted  together  by  the  narrow 
ends  of  these  strips.  At  the  heads  of  some  of  the  strips  is 
written  Orlando'.  The  careful  script  is  mainly  in  an  Eng- 
lish hand,  probably  that  of  a  professional  scribe,  A  few 
contractions  are  used.  Some  blanks  have  been  filled  in  and 
some  corrections  made  in  Alleyn's  own  hand.  The 

1  S.T.M.  (i  only,  in  an  addition),     (5),  Captives  (3),  Thomas  of  Woodstock 
2  M.T.  (2  only,  not  minor  characters),     (3),  H.M.F.  (3). 
Bamafveb  (n),  Believe  (ir,  with  6         a  Eliz.  Stage,  ii.  44;  iii.  194,  and 
major  characters  incidentally  and  z     in  many  plays  of  Shakespeare. 

»  Cf.  Bibl  Note. 


Chap.  IV  THE  BOOK  OF  tHE  PLAY  123 

speeches  assigned  to  the  actor  are  transcribed  successively, 
and  separated  by  long  rules,  at  the  end  of  which  are 
written  the  closing  words,  from  one  to  four  in  number,  of 
the  foregoing  actor's  speech.  These  are  the  'cues','  to 
which  also  there  are  many  references.1  Orlando's  de- 
partures from  the  stage  are  sufficiently  indicated  by  further 
rules  and  generally  an  'exit'.  There  are  some  directions 
in  the  left  margin,  for  action  by  Orlando  himself,  or  for 
fights  and  other  episodes  during  which  he  is  silent.  The 
verse  is  occasionally  mislined;  the  initial  letter  of  each  line 
is  in  minuscule.  The  punctuation  is  slight;  the  comma 
is  a  stop  of  all  work;  stops  are  often  omitted  at  the  ends 
of  lines;  a  comma,  otherwise  superfluous,  sometimes 
marks  the  so-called  caesura.  Prose  is  written  in  lines  of 
irregular  length,  but  with  no  attempt  to  let  the  end  of  a 
clause  be  also  the  end  of  a  line. 

The  conduct  of  a  performance  involved,  besides  the 
parts,  certain  other  subsidiary  documents.  The  most  im- 
portant was  the  'plot',  a  skeleton  outline  of  the  action, 
with  notes  of  entrances  and  exits,  and  of  the  properties  and 
noises  required.  The  plot  was  written  in  double  columns, 
mounted  on  a  sheet  of  paste-board,  and  pierced  with  a 
square  hole  to  fit  a  peg.  Seven  plots,  some  only  frag- 
mentary, are  known,  and  of  six  the  manuscripts  survive. 
All  have  been  reproduced,  and  studied  in  the  minutest 
detail,  by  Dr.  Greg.2  Those  of  The  Dead  Man's  Fortune 
and  The  Second  Part  of  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins  were  pro- 
bably used  by  Strange's  men  and  the  Admiral's,  separ- 
ately or  in  combination,  about  1590;  those  of  Frederick 
andBasilea,  The  Second  Part  of  Fortune's  Tennis,  Troilusand 
Cressida,  The  Battle  of  Alcazar,  and  The  First  Part  of  Tamar 
Cam  by  the  Admiral's  during  1597-1602.  The  Deadly 
Sins  and  Fortune's  Tennis  are  in  the  hand  of  the  book- 

1  Etiz.  Stage,  ii.  541 ;  iv.  367,  and  in  '.q.*,  *qu'.  Seventeenth-century  writers 

several  plays  of  Shakespeare.  O.E.D.  derived  it  from  qualis  or  quando.  The 

rejects  a  derivation  from  queue,  which  latter  seems  more  plausible,  but  pro- 

the  arrangement  at  the  end  of  a  rule  bably  in  its  Italian  use.   In  Locatelli's 

may  have  suggested.    The   French  Scenari   (cf,   p.   493)    each  episode 

term  is  replique.    In  early  texts  the  is  ended  by  an  'in  q°',  introducing  the 

word  often  appears  as  *Q',  *qf,  'q.',  "«*•  a 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  Chap.  IV 

keeper  concerned  with  Sir  Thomas  More.  In  the  plots,  as 
in  some  of  the  play  manuscripts,  the  names  of  actors  are 
appended  to  those  of  the  personages  whom  thejr  repre- 
sented. But  they  are  more  fully  given,  amounting  in  most 
cases  to  a  complete  or  nearly  complete  cast  for  the  play. 
Dr.  Greg  has  pointed  out  that  the  phrasing  of  the  descrip- 
tions of  action  often  recalls  that  of  the  stage-directions 
supplied  by  authors,  and  suggests  that  the  plots  were 
abstracted  from  prompt-copies.    They  have  their  own 
characteristic  in  the  frequent  linking  of  successive  entries 
by  the  words  To  them'.1   They  differ  rather  curiously 
from  the  extant  play  manuscripts  in  that  more  attention 
seems  to  be  paid  to  scene-division,  than  to  act-division. 
The  scenes  are  always  carefully  separated  by  rules.    In 
Dead  Man's  Fortune  crosses  placed  upon  some  of  them, 
together  with  accompanying  directions  for  music,  indicate 
act-divisions.  Elsewhere  there  is  no  special  sign  for  these, 
although  they  can  sometimes  be  inferred  from  the  in- 
cidence of  dumb-shows,  choruses,  or  the  interventions  of 
presenters.   As  in  the  plays,  exits  are  often  disregarded. 
We  do  not  know  exactly  where  the  plots  were  hung;  per- 
haps rather  in  the  centre  of  the  tiring-house,  for  the 
general  use  of  the  company,  than  at  the  prompter's 
corner,  since  he  had  a  duplicate  of  the  material  at  his 
disposal.    A  title— 'The  Booke  and  Platt  of  the  Second 
part  of  The  7  deadly  Sinns' — suggests  that,  when  not  in 
use,  book  and  plot  were  preserved  together.    Less  im- 
portant than  the  plots  were  what  we  may  call  the  'scrolls'. 
These  were  copies  of  letters  and  the  like,  written  out  on 
separate  pieces  of  paper,  to  be  read  by  the  appropriate 
actor,  who  was  thus  saved  from  having  to  commit  them  to 
memory.  Their  existence  may  be  gathered  from  a  schedule 
of  them  appended  by  the  book-keeper  to  Believe  as  Tou 
List.  Verses  read  by  Orlando  do  not  appear  in  his  'part'.2 
One  general  remark  on  the  theatrical  manuscripts  will 
help  in  a  subsequent  discussion.   While  they  are  some- 
times in  the  hand  of  the  author  and  sometimes  in  that  of 
the  book-keeper  or  another  scribe,  it  is  clear  that  the  same 

1  I  find  this  formula  in  J.  a  K.  368.  a  Orlando  Furioso,  648. 


Ckap.  IV  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  PLAY  125 

copy  might  serve  both  as  the  official  'book*  endorsed  by 
the  Master  of  the  Revels,  and  as  a  working  stage-copy, 
probably  an  actual  'prompt-copy',  for  the  ordering  of  per- 
formances. And  in  Believe  as  Tou  List  and  Launching  of  the 
Mary,  at  least,  we  have  evidence  that  this  copy  might  be 
the  author's  own  original. 

Besides  the  theatrical  manuscripts  there  are  extant  a 
few  others  of  a  different  type.  They  are  careful  and  some- 
times even  calligraphic  transcripts,  evidently  intended  for 
private  reading.  Some  have  dedicatory  epistles  to  patrons. 
Those  which  have  been  fully  described  are  all  rather  late. 
Bonduca  is  in  the  hand  of  the  book-keeper  of  Believe  as 
Tou  List,  but  Dr.  Greg  says  that  it  has  'none  of  the  usual 
stigmas  of  the  prompt  copy'.  Similar  manuscripts  were 
prepared  by  Ralph  Crane,  the  scribe  of  Sir  John  Barnavelt. 
Of  these  The  Witch  has  an  epistle,  also  in  Crane's  hand, 
from  Middleton  to  Thomas  Holmes.  The  Humourous 
Lieutenant  is  dedicated  by  Crane  himself  to  Sir  Kenelm 
Digby,  and  dated  27  November  1625.  Of  The  Game  at 
Chess  he  made  two  copies.  One  has  no  epistle;  the  other, 
which  is  an  abridged  version,  has  one  to  Thomas  Ham- 
mond, in  Middleton's  own  hand.  Here  the  entries  are 
massed  at  the  beginning  of  each  scene,  as  in  some  Shake- 
spearean texts.1  The  play  had  been  suppressed  for  rather 
audacious  political  references  in  1624,  and  was  naturally 
dear  to  collectors.2  Three  other  copies  exist,  for  which 
Crane  was  not  responsible.  One  is  wholly,  another  partly, 
in  Middleton's  hand.  Naturally  manuscripts  of  this  class 
do  not  tell  us  much  about  theatrical  conditions.  But  there 
is  an  interesting  note  in  Bonduca.  When  the  transcript 
came  to  be  made,  part  of  the  necessary  material  was  miss- 
ing, and  the  book-keeper  wrote  in  apology: 

The  occasion,  why  these  are  wanting  here,  the  booke  where  by 
it  was  first  Acted  from  is  lost:  and  this  hath  beene  transcribd  from 
the  fowle  papers  of  the  Authors  w°h  were  founde. 

Unfortunately,  he  does  not  say  whether  the  'fowle  papers' 
were  preserved  at  the  theatre  or  in  the  hands  of  the  author 
or  his  representatives. 

1  Cf.p.  154.       *  M^.C.i.379j  Bald  159$  B.M.  Wagner  in  P.M.L«A.iliv.  827. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO 

\BibliographicalNote.  I  deak  fully  with  the  general  history  of  Elizabethan 
publishing  in  ch.  xxii  of  The  Elizabethan  Stage  (1923)  and  need  not  repeat 
the  list  of  books  and  dissertations  there  given.  Of  recent  additions,  the 
most  comprehensive  is  E.  M.  Albright,  Dramatic  Publication  in  England, 
1580-1640  (1927).  The  review  by  W.  W.  Greg  in  R.E.S.  iv  (1928),  91, 
will  show  that  it  requires  handling  with  some  caution.  It  has  itself  a  full 
bibliography.  Other  contributions  are  A.  W.  Pollard,  The  Stationers* 
Company's  Records  (1926,  4  library,  vi.  348);  W.  W.  Greg,  Some  Notes 
on  the  Stationers'  Register  (1927,  4  Library,  vii.  376),  The  Decrees  and 
Ordinances  of  the  Stationers'  Company,  1576-1602  (1928,  4  Library,  viii. 
395)5  E.  Kuhl,  The  Stationers'  Company  and  Censorship  (1929, 4  Library, 
ix.  388).  Fresh  light  may  be  expected  from  the  text  of  the  Decrees  and 
Ordinances,  excluded  from  Arber's  edition  of  the  Stationers'  Registers,  but 
now  under  preparation  by  W.  W.  Greg  for  the  Bibliographical  Society. 
A  full  bibliography  of  early  drama  from  the  same  hand  is  also  still  expected. 
On  the  Shakespearean  prints  themselves  the  fundamental  work  is  A,  W. 
Pollard,  Shakespeare  Folios  and  Quartos  (1909).  It  is  supplemented  for 
the  Quartos  by  A.  W.  Pollard  and  H.  C.  Bartlett,  A  Census  of  Shake- 
speare's Plays  in  Quarto  (1916);  by  H.  R.  Plomer,  The  Printers  of 
Shakespeare's  Plays  and  Poems  (1906, 2  Library,  vii.  149);  H.  Farr,  Notes 
on  Shakespeare's  Printers  and  Publishers  (1923,  4  Library,  iii.  225).  The 
literature  of  the  First  Folio  is  considerable.  S.  Lee  prefixed  an  elaborate 
introduction  to  the  Clarendon  Press  Facsimile  (1902)  and  added  A  Census 
of  Extant  Copies  with  Some  Account  of  their  History  and  Condition.  To 
this  he  made  additions  in  2  Library,  vii  (1906),  113,  and  in  A  Survey  of 
First  Folios  contributed  to  Studies  in  the  First  Folio  (1924,  Shakespeare 
Association).  Others  are  made  by  R.  M.  Smith  and  H.  S.  Leach  in  Lehigh 
University  Publications^  i  (1927).  An  example  of  special  interest  is  de- 
scribed in  F.  Madan,  G.  M.  R.  Turbutt,  and  S.  Gibson,  The  Original 
Bodleian  Copy  of  The  First  Folio  of  Shakespeare  (1905).  The  Shakespeare 
Association  volume  of  1924  also  includes,  besides  papers  elsewhere  named, 
an  Introduction  by  I.  Golkncz,  and  a  study  of  The  First  Folio  and  its 
Publishers  by  W.  W.  Greg,  which  supplements  his  The  Bibliographical 
History  of  the  First  Folio  (1903,  2  Library,  iv.  258).  Other  dissertations 
are  J.  Q.  Adams,  Timon  of  Athens  and  the  Irregularities  in  the  First  Folio 
(1908,  7.E.G.P.  vii.  53);  W.  Keller,  Shakespeares  literarisches  Testament 
V9,.  *,  ,  x''  Die  Anordmn&  ™*  ^akespeares  Dramen  in  der  ersten 
Foho-Ausgabe  (1920,  J.  Ivi.  90);  R.  C.  Rhodes,  Shakespeare's  First  Folio 
(1923);  F.  P.  Wilson,  The  Ja&ards  and  the  First  Folio  of  Shakespeare 
(1925,  Nov.  5,  12,  rjt.*.)s  E.  E.  WiUoughby,  An  Interruption  in  the 


Chap.V  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  127 
Printing  ofFi  (1928, 4  Library,  ix.  262).  C.  A.  Smith  discusses  Tie  Chief 
Differences  between  the  First  and  Second  Folios  of  Shakespeare  (1901,  E.S. 
xxx.  i). 

The  Quartos  of  1619  are  studied  from  various  angles  in  A.  Wagner, 
Eine  Sammlungvon  Sh.-Quartos  in  Deutschland (1902,  Anglia,  xxv.  518); 
A.  W.  Pollard,  Sh.  in  the  Remainder  Market  (1906,  June  2,  Academy), 
Sh.  Tf  and  Q?  (1909),  On  the  Supposed  False  Dates  in  Shn.  Qf  (1910-1 i, 
3  Library,  i.  46;  ii.  101),  Sh's  Fight  with  the  Pirates  (1917,  1920); 
W.  W.  Greg,  On  Certain  False  Dates  in  Shn.  Qf  (1908,  2  Library,  ix. 
1 13,  381);  S.  Lee  and  others  (1908,  May  9  to  1909,  Jan.  30,  Athen*um)\ 
W.  Jaggard,  False  Dates  in  Shn.  Q?  (1909,  2  Library,  x.  208);  A.  H. 
Huth,  On  the  Supposed  False  Dates  in  Shn.  Qf  (1910,  3  Library,  i.  36); 
W.  J.  Neidig,  The  Sh.  Qf  of  1619  (1910,  M.P.  viii.  145),  False  Dates 
on  Si.  gf  (1910,  Century  Mag.,  912). 

A.  W.  Pollard's  theory  of  the  surreptitious  or  'Bad*  Quartos  is  set  out 
in  his  Folios  and  Quartos  and  Shakespeare's  Fight,  and  elaborated  (cf. 
ch.  vii),  with  the  help  of  J.  D.  Wilson,  in  The  'Stolne  and  Surreptitious9 
Shn.  Texts  (1919,  Jan.  9,  16,  March  13,  Aug.  7,  14,  T.L.S.,  with  dis- 
cussion, Aug.  21,  28),  and  by  Wilson  in  The  Copy  for  Hamlet,  1603,  and 
the  Hamlet  Transcript,  1593  (1918)-  The  'shorthand'  theory  and  the 
systems  of  shorthand  on  which  it  is  based  are  discussed  in  M.  Levy,  Sh. 
and  Shorthand  (\W>£),  William  Sh.  and  Timothy  Bright  (i<)io)\  C.Dewi- 
scheit,  Sh.  und  die  Anfange  der  englischen  Stenographic  (1897),  Sh.  und  die 
Stenographie  (1898,  J.  xxxiv.  170);  O.  Pape,  Uber  die  Entstehung  der 
Qi  von  Shs  Rich.  HI  (1906);  A.  Seeberger,  Zur  Enstehung  der  Q  des 
i  Jeronimo  (1908,  Arch.f.  Stenographie,  lix.  236,  257);  W.  J.  Carlton, 
Timothe  Bright  Doctor  ofPhysicke  (191 1);  P.  Friedrich,  Timothy  Bright9s 
Characterie  (1914,  Arch.f.  Schriftkunde,  i.  88);  A.  Schottner,  Ober  die 
mutmassliche  Stenographische  Entstehung  der  Qi  von  Shs  R.J.  (1918); 
H.  T.  Price,  The  Text  of  Hen.  ^(1920);  H.  Roloff,  Zu  Ford's  Neudruck 
von  Brighfs  Stenographiesystem  'Characterie*  1588  (1922,  Archiv9  cxliii. 
47);  M.  Forster,  Zum  Jubilaum  der  Sh.-Folio  (1924,  Z.f.  Bucherfreunde, 
N.  F.  xvi.  53).  I  have  not  seen  W.  Kraner,  Die  Entstehung  der  ers ten 
Q  von  Shs  Hen.  V  (1923).  A  study  of  the  'memorization'  theory  must 
start  from  W.  W.  Greg's  edition  of  Qi  of  Merry  Wives  of  W.  (1910)  and 
his  Bad  Quartos  Outside  Sh.  (1919,  j  Library,  x.  193)  and  Two  Eliza- 
bethan Stage  Abridgements:  Alcazar  and  Orlando  (1923).  L.  B.  Wright 
has  an  interesting  Note  on  Dramatic  Piracy  (1928,  M.L.N.  xliii.  256). 

A  classification  of  the  'Good'  texts  must  rest  largely  on  the  collations  in 
the  Cambridge  Shakespeare.  Parallel-texts  and  the  analyses  by  P.  A.  Daniel 
and  others  in  the  Shakespeare  Quarto  Facsimiles  and  by  J.  D.  Wilson  in 
the  New  Shakespeare  are  valuable.  Dissertations  bearing  on  the  subject  are 
A.  W.  Pollard  and  J.  D.  Wilson,  Wkrt  Follows  if  Some  of  the  Good  Q 
Editions  of  Sh.'s  Plays  were  Printed  from  his  Autograph  MSS.?  (1920, 
Bit/.  Soc.  Trans,  xv.  136,  in  summary);  A.  W.  Pollard,  The  Foundations 
of  SL's  Text  (1923,  Brit.  Acad)\  J.  D.  Wilson,  The  Task  of  Heminge 
and  Condell  (1924,  &f .  Ass.  Studies,  53) ;  P.  Simpson,  The  Bibliographical 


128          THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO    Chap.V 

Study  of  SL  (1923,  Proc.  Oxford  Bibl.  Soc.  i.  19);  B.  A.  P.  van  Dam, 
Textual  Criticism  ofSh.'s  Plays  (1925,  English  Studies,  vi.  97);  W.  W. 
Greg,  Principles  of  Emendation  in  Bh.  (1928,  Brit.  Acad!)\ 

MUCH  has  been  written  about  the  regulation  of  the 
London  book-trade.  It  is  not  necessary  to  repeat  here  the 
story  of  its  beginnings  in  the  characteristic  Tudor  desire 
to  control  the  expression  of  opinions  hostile  to  the  estab- 
lished order  of  things,  from  time  to  time,  in  church  and 
state,1  Earlier  procedure  had  been  regularized,  before 
any  play  of  Shakespeare  could  come  in  question,  by  an 
Order  in  the  Star  Chamber  of  23  June  I586.2  This  pro- 
vided for  limiting  the  number  of  printers  and  of  their 
presses,  and  put  the  licensing  of  books  in  the  hands  of  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  Bishop  of  London.  It  was 
in  fact  delegated  to  correctors,  most  of  whom  were  epis- 
copal chaplains  or  prebendaries  of  St.  Paul's.  On  the 
business  side,  the  detailed  administration  was  in  the  hands 
of  the  Company  of  Stationers,  who  in  their  turn  were  sub- 
ject to  the  linked  supervision  of  the  Privy  Council  and  the 
ecclesiastical  Court  of  High  Commission.  All  the  London 
booksellers,  some  250  in  number  with  their  journeymen, 
and  the  great  majority  of  the  twenty  or  so  printers,  many 
of  whom  exercised  the  double  trade,  were  freemen  of  the 
Company.  Elected  officers,  a  Master,  two  Wardens,  and 
a  Court  of  Assistants,  governed  its  affairs.  Most  of  our 
knowledge  of  the  system  is  due  to  the  well-preserved 
records  of  the  Company.  A  few  of  these,  as  yet  unpub- 
lished, may  still  give  fresh  light.  The  most  important 
document  is  the  Register,  by  the  entry  of  his  'copy'  in 
which  a  stationer  might  secure  the  sole  right  of  selling 
a  book,  other  than  such  as  were  held  by  the  Company  itself 
or  by  the  crown  printer,  or  by  individuals,  who  were  not 
always  freemen  of  the  Company,  under  privileges  granted 
by  letters  patent.  The  privileges,  however,  did  not  affect 
plays;  small  affairs  commercially,  and  generally  handled  by 
the  less  important  stationers.  The  Company  imposed 
severe  penalties  upon  breaches  of  copyright.  A  great 
many  plays  were  never  entered  in  the  Register  at  all,  for 

*  Cf.  Etiz.  Stage,  ch.  xxii.         *  Arber,  ii.  8075  extract  in  Eliz.  Stage,  iv.  303. 


Chap.V  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  129 
reasons  which  remain  obscure.  In  some  cases  a  desire  to 
save  the  sixpenny  fee  on  entry  may  have  operated;  in 
others  the  manuscript  may  have  been  illegitimately  ob- 
tained, although  it  is  not  clear  how  far,  if  at  all,  the  Com- 
pany concerned  itself  with  such  matters.1  An  unentered 
book  presumably  carried  no  copyright.  But  transfers  of 
books  from  one  stationer  to  another  were  also  registered, 
and  it  seems  that  such  a  transfer  might  secure  copyright, 
even  when  there  had  been  no  original  entry.  Sometimes 
stationers  went  out  of  business  without  disposing  of  their 
copyrights,  and  in  such  cases  the  books  became  derelict, 
and  available  for  reprinting  by  others.2  Whether  copy- 
right also  lapsed,  when  a  book  had  been  entered,  but  never 
published,  is  uncertain.  In  theory,  it  must  be  supposed 
that  the  Company  were  expected  not  to  enter  a  book  with- 
out seeing  the  allowance  of  the  licenser  upon  the  manu- 
script or  a  print.  Practice  did  not  always  follow  theory, 
where  insignificant  or  obviously  safe  publications  were 
concerned.  But  in  1599  special  instructions  were  given 
by  the  archbishop  and  bishop  'that  noe  playes  be  printed 
excepte  they  bee  allowed  by  suche  as  haue  aucthoritye';3 
and  thereafter  in  making  entries,  the  Company's  clerk 
generally  recited  the  name  of  the  licenser  by  whom,  in 
addition  to  a  warden,  the  authority  was  given,  or  added 
a  note  that  printing  was  not  to  take  place  until  proper 
authority  was  obtained.  Presumably  such  conditional 
entries  gave  provisional  protection  to  the  copyright.4  The 
entries  suggest  that  about  1607  an  arrangement  was  made 
by  which  the  Master  of  the  Revels  normally  acted  as  the 
official  for  licensing  plays.5  It  is  possible  that,  if  the  manu- 
script produced  already  bore  the  Master's  allowance  for 

1  Cf.  EKz.  Stage,  iii.  176.  record  of  a  transfer  of  21  Nov.  1606 

*  Sometimes  (Arber,  V.  1)  the  Court  (Arber,  iii.  333).    He  licensed  sixteen 
required  a  fee  of  6d.  in  the  £  for  the  alone  in  Apr.-Oct.  1607.  Rhodes  29 
benefit  of  poor  stationers.  suggests  that  these  had  been  held  up  by 

3  Arber,  iii.  .677$  Etix.  Stage,  iii.  a  dispute  as  to  procedure.  But  eight 

168.  *  of  the  plays  represent  the  repertory  of 

*  EUz.  Stage,  iii.  169;  cf.  p.  146.  Paul's  thrown  on  the  market  by  their 

*  The  first  licence  by  the  Master  closure  in  the  latter  part  of  1606  (Etix. 
was  perhaps  a  joint  one  with  an  ordi-  Stage,  ii.  225  iv.  390). 

nary  episcopal  licenser,  noted  in  the 
3142.1  K 


1 3o  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.V 
acting,  no  further  reference  to  him  was  necessary.1  After 
Sir  John  Ashley  became  Master  of  the  Revels  in  1622,  a 
letter  was  sent  by  the  Lord  Chamberlain  to  the  Company 
concerning  the  licensing  of  plays,  and  was  read  to  the 
master  printers.2  Some  further  restrictions  on  the  entry 
of  plays  belonging  to  the  acting  companies  will  be  dis- 
cussed later.s  It  must  not  be  assumed  that,  because  a 
play  was  not  registered  for  copyright,  it  had  not  been 
licensed. 

The  publication  of  Shakespearean  plays,  in  separate 
issues  known  as  the  Quartos,  was  first  approached  by  a 
group  of  publishers,  among  whom  shifting  business  rela- 
tions seem  to  have  existed,  and  some  of  whose  proceedings, 
from  a  literary  and  probably  also  from  a  commercial  point 
of  view,  were  discreditable.  John  Danter,  a  printer, 
registered  and  published  Titus  Andronicus  in  1594,  and 
entrusted  it  for  sale  to  Edward  White  and  Thomas  Mil- 
lington.  In  the  same  year  Millington  registered  and  pub- 
lished 2  Henry  W,  describing  it  as  the  first 'part  of  The 
Contention  of  York  and  Lancaster,  and  followed  it  in  1595, 
apparently  on  the  strength  of  the  same  registration,  with 
3  Henry  VI,  as  The  True  Tragedy  of  Richard  Luke  of  Tork. 
In  1597  Danter  published  Romeo  and  Juliet  without 
registration.  In  1600  Millington,  now  conjoined  with 
John  Busby,  published  Henry  Ft  This  again  was  un- 
registered, but  copyright  was  established  by  a  transfer  in 
the  same  year  to  Thomas  Pavier.  In  1602  Busby  regis- 
tered Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  and  transferred  it  on  the 
same  day  to  Arthur  Johnson,  who  at  once  published  it. 
Finally,  also  in  1602,  Millington  transferred  to  Pavier, 
'saluo  iure  cuiuscunque',  not  only  The  Contention,  now 

1  Herbert,  105, 112,  notes  that  Buck  v.  Iv,  says  that  an  entry  in  the  Sta- 

licensed  A  King  and  No  King  'to  be  tioners'  Register  without  licence  led  to 

Acted  in  i6n,  and  the  same  to  be  an  order  to  the  Clerk 'at  the  instigation 

printed',   but  it  is   not  quite  dear  of  Sir  Henry  Herbert'  not  to  enter 

whether  these  were  two  licences  or  one.  *plays,  tragedies,  tragic  comedies,  or 

*  Noted  by  Malone  from  the  Sta-  pastorals'  without  the  authority  of  the 

tioners'  Company's  Cmrt  Boot,  C.  76,  Master  of  the  Revels.    This  was  ap- 

in  his  annotated  Shakespeare  (1790),  parently  after  the  Restoration. 

i.  2. 132  (BodL  Malme,  1046).  Arber,  3  Cf.  p.  135. 


Chap.V    THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  131 

described  as  the  first  and  second  parts  of  Henry  VI^ 
but  also  Titus  Andronicus.  This  had  been  Danter's,  but 
Danter,  who  had  been  more  than  once  in  trouble  with 
the  Company  for  infringing  privileges,  was  now  dead,  and 
possibly  Edward  White,  who  had  reissued  the  play  in 
1600,  and  Millington  were  able  to  claim  it  under  the 
arrangement  by  which  they  sold  it.  The  'saluo  iure  cuius- 
cunque'  must  have  been  a  reservation  for  the  interest  of 
White,  who  reissued  it  again  in  161 i.  So  much  for  this 
group.  With  the  exception  of  Titus  Andronicus^  all  their 
plays  appeared  in  extremely  bad  texts,  the  nature  of  which 
will  presently  require  examination.1  Meanwhile,  other 
publishers  had  got  to  work  with  better  texts,  Cuthbert 
Burby  published  Love's  Labour's  Los  fin  1598  and  Romeo 
and  Juliet  in  1599.  This,  which  is  described  on  its  title- 
page  -as  'newly  corrected,  augmented,  and  amended',  was 
evidently  meant  to  replace  Danter's  text,  and  as  Love's 
Labour  ys  Lost  bears  a  similar  description,  it  is  extremely 
likely  that  of  this  too  there  had  been  an  earlier  bad  version. 
Danter,  having  failed  to  register,  could  be  ignored;  it  is 
not  so  clear  why  Burby  himself  did  not  register  either 
play.  A  more  substantial  contribution  than  Burby 's  was 
that  of  Andrew  Wise,  who  duly  registered  and  published 
Richard  II  (1597),  Richard  III  (1597),  and  I  Henry  IV 
(1598)  by  himself,  and  somewhat  later  2  Henry  IP '(1600) 
and  Much  Ado  About  Nothing  (1600)  in  conjunction  with 
William  Aspley.  He  transferred  the  first  three  to  Matthew 
Law  in  1603,  and  is  not  heard  of  again.  No  doubt  the 
other  two  remained  with  Aspley.  Midsummer-Night 's 
Dream  was  registered  and  published  by  Thomas  Fisher  in 
1 600.  Of  him,  too,  nothingis  known  after  1 60 1 .  Probably 
the  book  became  derelict.  Some  doubt  hangs  about  the 
activities  of  James  Roberts,  a  printer  who  had  acquired  by 
marriage  in  1593  a  special  right  of  printing  bills  for 
players.2  In  1598  he  registered  Merchant  of  Venice^  sub- 
ject to  an  unusually  worded  condition  that  he  should  first 
obtain  licence  from  the  Lord  Chamberlain.  No  publica- 
tion by  him  is  known,  but  in  1600  he  transferred  the  play 

1  Cf.  p.  156.  *  Etix.  Stage,  ii.  548$  McKerrow,  Diet.  229, 

K2 


I32  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.V 
to  Thomas  Heyes,  for  whom  he  then  printed  it.  In  1602 
he  registered  Hamlet.  This  was  published  in  the  next  year 
by  Nicholas  Ling  and  John  Trundell.  The  printer  was  not 
Roberts,  but  Valentine  Simmes.  The  text  was  a^bad  one, 
much  like  those  already  noted.  A  good  one,  claiming  on 
its  title-page  to  be  According  to  the  true  and  perfect 
Coppie',  was  substituted  in  1604.  The  publisher  was 
again  Ling,  acting  alone,  and  now  Roberts  was  the  printer. 
In  1607  Ling  acquired  Burby's  copyrights  of  Love's 
Labour's  Lost  and  Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  transferred 
them,  together  with  Hamlet,  to  John  Smethwick.  An 
unregistered  transfer  of  Hamlet  from  Roberts  to  Ling 
must  be  assumed.  In  1  603  Roberts  registered  Troilus  and 
Cressida,  after  the  exceptional  procedure  of  a  'full  court' 
held'by  the  Company,  and  with  the  proviso  that  'sufficient 
aucthority'  must  be  obtained.  He  never  published  the 


- 

y  the  end  of  Elizabeth's  reign,  therefore,  ^  fifteen 
Shakespearean  texts  had  appeared.  Of  these  six,  and 
probably  seven  (2,  3  Henry  FI,  Romeo  and  Juliet,  Henry  7, 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  Hamlet,  Love's  Labour's  Lost?}, 
were  originally  in  bad  texts,  although  of  two  and  probably 
three  (Romeo  and  Juliet,  Hamlet,  Love's  Labour's  Lost?) 
good  ones  were  substituted.  Of  eight  (Titus  Andronicus, 
Richard  II,  Richard  III,  i,  2  Henry  'IF,  Much  Ado  About 
Nothing,  Midsummer-Night's  Dream,  Merchant  of  Venice] 
the  original  texts  were  good.  A  note  in  the  Register  sug- 
gests that  at  one  time  the  publication  of  As  Tou  Like  It, 
as  well  as  Troilus  and  Cressida,  had  been  contemplated.1 
But  these,  with  Comedy  of  Errors,  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  Two 
Gentlemen  of  Verona,  John,  Julius  Caesar,  Twelfth  Night,  and 
All's  Well  That  Ends  Well,  probably  all  of  Elizabethan 
date,  remained  unprinted.  There  was  little  more  fresh 

Sublication  before  the  time  of  the  First  Folio.   In  1607 
usby  and  Nathaniel  Butter  registered  King  Lear  and 
Butter  published  it  in  1608.   Edward  Blount  registered 
both  Anthony  and  Cleopatra  and  Pericles  in  1  608.  He  pub- 
lished neither  of  them.  But  Pericles  was  published  in  the 

'Cf.p.145- 


Chap.V  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  133 
next  year  by  Henry  Gosson,  to  whom  no  transfer  is 
recorded.  King  Lear  and  Pericles  cannot  be  called  good 
texts,  although  they  are  not  of  the  same  type  as  the  bad 
texts  of  the  early  publishers.1  Busby  had  been  one  of  these, 
and  both  he  and  Butter  were  concerned  with  plays  of 
Heywood,  to  the  publication  of  which  the  author  took 
exception.2  In  1 609  Richard  Bonian  and  Henry  Walley 
registered  and  published  a  good  text  of  Troilus  and  Cres- 
sida,  with  the  unusual  feature,  in  Shakespearean  quartos, 
of  an  epistle,  in  which  they  complained  of  the  unwilling- 
ness of  'the  grand  possessors'  to  allow  publication.  Either 
the  earlier  registration  by  Roberts  had  been  overlooked, 
or  his  copyright  had  lapsed  through  failure  to  publish  be- 
fore he  left  business  about  1608.  Finally,  on  the  eve  of 
the  First  Folio,  Thomas  Walkley  registered  Othello  in 
1621  and  published  it  in  1622. 

Meanwhile  several  of  the  plays  had  been  reprinted  from 
time  to  time,  notably  those  in  the  hands  of  Law  (Richard 
//,  Richard  Illy  i  Henry  If^)  and  Smethwick  (Romeo  and 
Juliet^  Hamlet].  A  scene  omitted  from  the  Elizabethan 
editions  of  Richard  II  was  added  in  1608.  With  this 
exception,  there  is  not  much  to  be  said  about  the  reprints. 
The  distribution  of  them  may  be  a  measure  either  of  the 
popularity  of  the  plays  or  of  the  energy  of  the  copyright- 
owners.3  There  was,  however,  one  reprinting  enterprise, 
the  nature  of  which  it  has  been  left  to  the  acuteness  of 
recent  bibliographers  to  establish.  Examples  have  been 
preserved  together,  in  half  a  dozen  different  collections,  of 
ten  plays  which  have  certain  features  in  common.  They 
are  rather  taller  than  most  Quartos,  and  their  imprints  are 
exceptionally  short.  They  are  as  follows: 

2,  3  Henry  VI  (The  Whole  Contention  betweene  .  . .  Lancaster  and 

Torke).  Printed  at  London,  for  T.  P. 
Pericles.  Printed  for  T.  P.  1619. 
A  Torkshire  Tragedy.  Printed  for  T.  P.  1619. 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor.   Printed  for  Arthur  Johnson,  1619. 
Merchant  of  Venice.  Printed  by  J.  Roberts,  1600, 

1  Cf.  p.  154.  *  A  table  of  prc-i623  Quartos  is  in 

*  Cf.  p.  47.  App.  G. 


134          THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO    Chap.V 

King  Lear.  Printed  for  Nathaniel  Butter  1608. 

Henry  V.  Printed  for  T.  P.  1608. 

Z  Sir  John  Oldcastle.  London  printed  for  T.  P,  1600. 

Midsummer-Night's  Dream.  Printed  by  lames  Roberts,  1600. 

The  Contention  and  Pericles  have  continuous  signatures  and 
were  clearly  designed  for  issue  together.  It  will  be  ob- 
served that  two  of  the  plays  are  not  Shakespeare's.  Both 
had  been  registered  and  published  by  Thomas  Pavier;  Sir 
John  Oldcastle  in  1600  and  A  Yorkshire  Tragedy  in  1608, 
The  latter,  but  not  the  former,  which  was  in  fact  written 
by  Drayton  and  others  for  the  Admiral's  men  as  an 
answer  to  Henry  IV ^  Pavier  had  at  the  time  ascribed  to 
Shakespeare.1  Successive  investigations  by  Professor  Pol- 
lard, Dr.  Greg,  and  Mr.  Niedig  have  demonstrated  that,  in 
spite  of  the  apparent  variation  in  the  dates,  all  the  ten 
reprints  really  appeared  in  1619.  They  came  from  the 
press  of  William  Jaggard,  the  publisher,  in  1599,  of  The 
Passionate  Pilgrim.2  Only  the  heads  of  the  complicated 
bibliographical  evidence,  by  which  this  conclusion  is 
reached,  can  be  given  here.  The  type  used  for  Merchant  of 
Venice  differs  from  that  of  the  same  size  used  by  Roberts, 
who  is  not  likely  to  have  had  a  duplicate  fount  not  trace- 
able in  any  other  book  printed  by  him.  It  was  used  by 
Jaggard.  The  ten  plays  are  all  linked  by  the  watermarks 
on  their  paper,  and  the  ordinary  life  of  a  'make'  of  paper 
was  too  short  to  allow  of  the  assumption  that  one  used  in 
1600  could  still  be  available  in  1619.  Paper  with  similar 
watermarks  was  used  by  Jaggard,  both  before  and  after  the 
latter  date.  Still  more  convincing  grounds  are  to  be  found 
in  the  title-pages.  The  date-numerals  are  of  a  large  size, 
not  found  elsewhere  before  1610.  All  the  plays,  with  one 
exception,  bear  the  same  printer's  device  (McKerrow  283) 
of  three  flowers  on  a  stalk  with  the  motto  Heb  Ddieu  heb 
ddim.  This  is  not  known  to  have  been  used  by  Roberts, 
but  was  used  by  Jaggard,  both  before  and  after  1619. 
The  Midsummer-Night's  Dream  bears  another  (McKerrow 
136),  the  arms  of  Geneva,  with  the  motto  Post  Tenebras 
Lux.  This  was  once  used  by  Roberts,  but  also  by  Jaggard 

1  Cf.  p.  535.  a  Cf.  p.  547. 


Chap.V  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  135 
before  1619,  Finally,  it  has  been  shown,  by  accurate 
measurements  and  by  recurrent  flaws  in  the  letters,  that 
the  lower  parts  of  all  the  title-pages,  except  that  of  Mid- 
summer-Night's Dreamy  must  have  been  printed  off  from 
the  same  setting  of  type,  which  remained  undistributed, 
while  the  actual  titles  were  altered  above  it.  The  argu- 
ments as  to  dating  seem  to  me  conclusive.  The  other 
aspects  of  the  transaction  leave  more  room  for  conjecture. 
William  Jaggard  succeeded  to  the  printing  business  of 
James  Roberts  about  1608,  and  by  1617  had  associated 
in  it  his  son  Isaac  Jaggard,  whose  imprint  is  on  a  book  of 
that  year.1  The  reprinting  of  1619  was  no  doubt  done  in 
concert  with  Pavier  who  owned  the  copyright  of  five  of  the 
plays,  and  whose  friendship  with  Jaggard  may  be  inferred 
ifrom  the  fact  that  the  latter  named  him  as  overseer  in  his 
will.2  Presumably  licence  was  obtained  from  Johnson  for 
the  use  of  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  and  from  Butter  for 
that  of  King  Lear.  Of  the  other  three,  Midsummer-Night's 
Dream  was  probably  derelict,  and  Merchant  of  Venice  may 
have  been  believed  to  be  so.  Blount's  registration  of 
Pericles  had  already  been  overlooked,  and  there  is 
nothing  to  show  that  Gosson  had  any  copyright.  The 
shortened  imprints  suggest  that  the  title-pages  were 
originally  meant  for  half-titles  in  a  comprehensive  volume, 
which  would  naturally  begin  with  a  general  and  more 
explicit  title-page.  So  far,  there  is  nothing  which  points 
to  any  deliberate  trade  irregularity.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  absence  of  continuous  signatures  after  Pericles  and  the 
obsolete  dates  4i6oo'  and  '1608*  seem  to  bear  witness  to 
departures  from  the  original  purpose.  And  the  most 
plausible  explanation  of  at  least  one  of  these  departures  is, 
I  think,  to  be  found  in  an  intervention  by  the  King's  men. 
It  was  nothing  to  Pavier  and  Jaggard  that  they  were 
reprinting  bad  texts  and  ascribing  to  Shakespeare  plays 
that  were  not  his.  Perhaps  Shakespeare's  fellows  viewed 

1  Heywood's  A  Woman  Killed  with  *  Greg,  Emendation,  41,  4$,  notes 

Kindness.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  that  in  Contention  and  Hen.  V  (both 

W.  Jaggard  had  (cf.  vol.  ii,  p.  365)  a  Pavier's)  the  texts  of  1619  show  some 

Warwickshire  Shakespeare  as  an  ap-  unexplained  anticipations  of  Fi. 
pientice* 


136  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  V 
such  proceedings  with  less  equanimity.  On  3  May  1619 
a  letter  was  addressed  by  the  Lord  Chamberlain  to  the 
Stationers'  Company  directing  that  none  of  the  King's 
men's  plays  should  be  printed  'without  some  of  their  con- 
sents'. Its  exact  terms  are  not  preserved.  But  they  appear 
to  be  recited  in  a  later  letter  of  similar  import  written  on 
10  June  1637  by  Philip  Earl  of  Pembroke,  then  Lord 
Chamberlain,  and  brother  of  William  Earl  of  Pembroke, 
who  was  Lord  Chamberlain  in  1619.  It  had  been  re- 
presented to  Earl  Philip's  brother  that  by  the  printing 
of  plays  of  the  King's  men  'not  only  they  themselves  had 
much  prejudice,  but  the  books  much  corruption,  to  the 
injury  and  disgrace  of  the  authors',  and  the  Stationers' 
Company  had  been  advised  'to  take  notice  thereof,  and  to 
take  order  for  the  stay  of  any  further  impression  of  any 
of  the  playes  or  interludes  of  his  majesties  servants  without 
their  consents'.1  It  is  certain  that  in  the  language  of  the 
printing  trade  the  term  'impression'  covered  a  reprint  as 
well  as  a  first  publication.  We  do  not  know  how  far  Pavier 
and  Jaggard  had  gone  before  this  bombshell  fell  They 

1  Earl  William's  letter  is  recorded  entered  for  printing,  that  notice  there- 
by Malone  under  the  date  1619  alone  of  be  given  to  the  king  and  queenes 
from  the  Stationers'  Company's  Court  servants,  the  players,  and  an  enquiry 
Book,  C.  f.  55*,  in  his  annotated  Shake-  made  of  them  to  whom  they  do  be- 
sfeare  (1790),  i.  2. 132  (BodL  Malone,  long;  and  that  none  bee  suffered  to  be 
1046).  Earl  Philip's  is  printed  in  full  printed  untill  the  assent  of  their  ma- 
from  P.R.O.  Ld.  Chamberlain's  Re-  jesties' said  servants  be  made  appear  to 
cordsj  V.  95,  f.  178,  in  7ariorum,  iii.  the  Master  and  Wardens  of  the  com- 
160.  He  adds:  'I  am  informed  that  pany  of  printers  and  stationers,  by 
some  copies  of  playes  belonging  to  the  some  certificate  in  writing  under  the 
king  and  queenes  servants,  the  players,  bands  of  John  Lowen,  and  Joseph 
and  purchased  by  them  at  dear  rates,  Taylor,  for  the  kings  servants,  and  of 
having  been  lately  stollen  or  gotten  Christopher  Beeston  for  the  king  and 
from  them  by  indirect  means,  are  now  queenes  young  company,  or  of  such 
attempted  to  be  printed;  which,  if  it  other  persons  as  shall  from  time  to 
should  be  suffered,  would  directly  tend  time  have  the  direction  of  these  corn- 
to  their  apparent  detriment  ana  pre-  panics.'  A  confirmation  of  7  August 
judice,  and  to  the  disenabling  them  to  1641  by  Robert  Earl  of  Essex,  then 
do  their  majesties  service:  for  preven-  Lord  Chamberlain,  for  the  King's 
tion  and  rediesse  whereof,  it  is  desired  men,  is  printed  from  P.R.O.  Ld. 
that  order  be  given  and  entered  by  the  Chamberlain's  Records,  V.  135,  p.  135, 
master  and  wardens  of  the  company  of  in  MS.C.  i.  364.  It  contains  a 
printers  and  stationers,  that  if  any  list  of  sixty  plays  belonging  to  the 
playes  be  already  entered,  or  shall  here-  company,  none  of  which  were  yet  in 
after  be  brought  unto  the  hall  to  be  print. 


Chap.V   THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          137 

may  have  issued  all  the  ten  plays.  It  is  perhaps  more 
likely  that  they  had  already  abandoned  the  continuous  sig- 
natures and  perhaps  the  idea  of  a  comprehensive  volume, 
had  separately  issued  those  dated  '1619',  and  had  the  rest 
ready  in  print.  If  so,  rather  than  sacrifice  their  material, 
they  took  the  rather  hazardous  course  of  altering  the  dates 
on  these  to  agree  with  those  of  the  last  impressions,  so 
that  they  might  pass  as  not  new  at  all.1  The  explanation 
is  not  wholly  satisfactory,  since  it  would  have  been  safer 
to  substitute  fresh  title-pages  more  exactly  agreeing  in 
detail  with  the  old  ones.  But  it  seems  to  be  the  best 
available.2  It  is  true  that  Henry  V  is  given  the  date  1608 
and  that  the  last  impression  now  extant  is  of  1602. 
It  is  also  true  that  the  extant  Midsummer-Night's  Dream 
of  1600  does  not  bear  the  name  of  its  printer,  and  that 
that  printer  is  not  likely  to  have  been  Roberts.  It  is  con- 
ceivable, in  both  cases,  that  an  edition,  known  to  Jaggard, 
may  have  disappeared.  But  it  is  also  possible  that  the 
*i6o8>  for  Henry  7  may  be  due  to  a  failure  to  alter  the 
lower  part  of  the  type,  as  it  had  stood  for  King  Lear. 
The  affair  of  1619  had  one  other  repercussion.  Merchant 
of  Venice  was  not  derelict  after  all.  Thomas  Heyes  had 
left  it  to  his  son  Laurence.  He  was  then  a  boy,  but  he 
now  put  in  a  claim,  and  Merchant  of  Venice  was  adjudged 
to  him  in  a  full  court  on  8  July  1619.  It  remains  to  add 
that  no  further  reprints  in  fact  appeared,  befof  e  the  Com- 
mon wealth  put  an  end  to  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  authority, 
of  any  of  the  bad  or  unauthentic  texts,  except  in  so  far  as 
Pericles^  of  which  the  history  is  throughout  obscure,  can 
be  reckoned  as  one  of  these. 

Whatever  the  events  of  1619,  they  can  have  left  no 
enduring  malice  between  the  King's  men  and  the  Jag- 
gfards,  since  it  was  again  from  their  press  that  the  collec- 
tion of  Shakespeare's  plays  known  as  the  First  Folio  came, 

^  x  McKerrow,  203,  notes  a  probable  throw  my  explanation  out.   Greg  ap- 

similar  antedating  of  an  edition  of  proves  his  technical  argument;  if  it  is 

Heywood's  Love's  Mistress.  sound,  it  is  difficult  to  see  why  '1619* 

2  Neidig  thinks  that  the  Mer.  of  was  allowed  to  appear  on  Merry  Wives 

Fen.  t.p.  was  printed  before  that  of  of  W.t  unless  by  a  sheer  oversight. 
Merry  Wives  of  W.9  which  would 


I38  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  V 
with  the  active  co-operation  of  Heminges  and  Condell,  in 
1623.  This  contained  eighteen  of  the  nineteen  plays  al- 
ready published  in  Quarto.  Pericles  was  omitted.  Good 
texts  of  2,  3  Henry  VI>  Henry  V>  and  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor  appeared  for  the  first  time.  Eighteen  plays  were 
added,  and  of  these  sixteen  were  covered  by  the  following 
registration  entry: I 

8°  Nouembris  1623. 

MrBlounte Isaak  Jaggard.  Entred  for  their  Copie vnder  the  hands 
of  Mr  Doctor  Worrall  and  Mr  Cole,  warden,  Mr  William  Shak- 
speers  Comedjres  Histories,  and  Tragedyes  soe  manie  of  the  said 
Copies  as  are  not  formerly  entred  to  other  men.  viz*.  Comedyes. 
The  Tempest  The  two  gentlemen  of  Verona.  Measure  for 
Measure.  The  Comedy  of  Errors.  As  you  Like  it.  All 's  well  that 
ends  well.  Twelft  night.  The  winters  tale.  Histories.  Thethirde 
parte  of  Henry  the  sixt.  Henry  the  eight.  Coriolanus.  Timonof 
Athens.  Julius  Caesar.  Tragedies.  Mackbeth.  Anthonie  and 
Cleopatra.  Cymbeline. 

The  licenser  was  here  not  the  Master  of  the  Revels,  but 
one  of  the  episcopal  delegates,  Thomas  Worrall,  a  pre- 
bendary of  St.  Paul's.2  The  title-page  of  the  Folio  runs : 

Mr.  William  Shakespeares  Comedies,  Histories,  &  Tragedies 
Published  according  to  the  True  Originall  Copies.  [Portrait,  signed 
Martin  Droeshout  sculpsit  London]  London.  Printed  by  Isaac 
laggard,  and  Ed.  Blount.  1623. 

There  is  a  head-title: 

The  Workes  of  William  Shakespeare,  containing  all  his  Come- 
dies, Histories  and  Tragedies:  Truely  set  forth,  according  to  their 
first  Originall. 

By  8  November  1623  Isaac  Jaggard  had  succeeded  his 
father,  who  was  dead  before  November  4.3  The  book, 
however,  apart  from  its  title-page  and  preliminary  matter, 

1  Arber,hr.  107.  A  facsimile  is  in  FJT  »  W.  W.  Greg  in  4  Library,  vii.  381. 

Studies  xix.  A  'G.  S.'  in  the  margin  is  *  Bibl.  Soc.  Trans,  xiv  (19x0),  1045 

modern  and  may  stand  for '00116101118  F.  P.  Wilson  in  T.L.S.  5,  12  Nov. 

Shakespeare*  or  'George  Steevens'.  1925. 


Chap.V  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  139 
must  have  been  printed  during  William  Jaggard's  life- 
time, since  his  name  is  in  the  colophon,  which  runs: 

Printed  at  the  Charges  of  W.  Jaggard,  Ed.  Blount,  I.  Smith- 
weeke,  and  W.  Aspley,  1623. 

The  first  evidence  of  actual  publication  is  the  binding  of 
a  copy  for  the  Bodleian  on  17  February  1624.  It  may  be 
assumed  to  have  taken  place  in  1  623,  as  the  date  indicates. 
It  can  hardly  have  preceded  registration,  in  spite  of  the 
inscription  'Ex  dono  Willelmi  laggard  Typographi.  A°. 
1623'  on  the  copy  once  belonging  to  the  herald  Augustine 
Vincent.  This  is  in  Vincent's  hand,  not  Jaggard's,  and 
may  only  commemorate  a  lifetime  promise.  It  has  been 
shown  that  the  date  of  '1622',  said  to  have  been  found  on 
a  single  example,  is  a  fabrication.1  But  that  earlier  publica- 
tion was  at  first  contemplated  is  shown  by  a  Frankfort  list 
of  books  published  between  the  marts  of  April  and  Octo- 
ber 1622,  which  includes  the  entry  Tlayes,  written  by 
M.  William  Shakespeare,  all  in  one  volume,  printed  by 
Isaack  laggard,  in  fol.'.2  Mr.  Willoughby  has  an  ingenious 
argument,  based  on  recurrent  flaws  in  a  tail-piece,  which 
makes  it  probable  that  printing  began  as  far  back  as  162  1, 
and  was  suspended  at  an  early  stage  in  the  composition  of 
the  histories,  owing  to  the  pressure  of  other  work  which 
there  is  reason  for  thinking  that  the  Jaggards  were  regard- 
ing as  urgent  towards  the  end  of  that  year,3  If  so,  the 
initiation  of  the  enterprise  may  have  followed  pretty  closely 
upon  the  abandonment  of  that  of  1619. 

The  colophon  shows  that  publication  was  undertaken 
by  a  syndicate  of  stationers.  Edward  Blount  and  Isaac 
Jaggard  held  the  new  copyrights.  The  play  described 
in  the  Register  as  'The  thirde  part  of  Henry  the  sixte' 
is  clearly  i  Henry  FL  The  transfer  of  the  Contention 


1  Lee,  Introd.  to  Foes,  xxxiij  Census,  Catalogue  for  Oct.  ifos-Apr.  1624  has 
24.  the  corresponding  entry  'Master  Wil- 

2  F.   P.   Wilson   (1925,    Nov.    5,  Ham  Shakespeares  workes,  printed  for 
T.L.S.)  from  Catalogus  Universal^  pro  Edward  Blount,  m  fol.\ 

Nundinis  Franc  ofurtensibus  .  There  are  3  4  Library,  ix.  262.    The  actor- 

other  English  books  in  this  list,  which  list  (cf.  vol.  ii,  p.  78)  also  points  to 

did  not  appear  before  1623,  and  the  1621. 


140          THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO    Chap.V 
in  1602  had  made  2,  3  Henry  VI  the  first  and  second 
parts,  as  viewed  by  the  trade.  Jaggard  had  no  earlier  copy- 
rights.  Blount,  who  was  not  a  printer  as  the  title-page 
suggests,  but  a  publisher  of  better  standing  than  most  of 
those  who  concerned  themselves  with  Shakespeare's  plays, 
may  have  forgotten  that  he  had  already  registered  Anthony 
and  Cleopatra,  together  with  the  absent  Pericles,  in  1608. 
But  possibly  his  right  had  lapsed  through  failure  to  pub- 
lish, or  the  object  of  the  re-entry  was  to  give  Jaggard  an 
interest.  Smethwick  contributed  Romeo  and  Juliet,  Love's 
Labour's  Losty  and  Hamlet,  and  Aspley  Much  Ado  About 
Nothing  and  2  Henry  IV.   The  syndicate  could  use  the 
derelict  Midsummer-Night's  Dream.    But  for  other  plays 
already  in  print  they  must  have  made  arrangements  with 
outside  owners  of  copyrights;  with  Pavier  for  Titus  An- 
dronicuS)  2,  3  Henry  FI,  and  Henry  V\  perhaps  with  White 
also  for  Titus  Andronicus\  with  Law  for  Richard  II,  Richard 
III,  and  i  Henry  IV \  with  Heyes  for  Merchant  of  Venice  \ 
with  Johnson  for  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor\  with  Butter  for 
King  Lear,  with  Bonian  and  Walley  for  Troths  and  Cres- 
sida\  and  with  Walkley  for  Othello.    Walkley,  indeed, 
publishing  after  the  Lord  Chamberlain's  letter  of  1619, 
may  himself  have  had  no  more  than  a  conditional  assent 
to  his  use  of  the  play  from  the  King's  men.  Two  of  the 
added  plays,  which  are  not  in  the  registration  entry, 
remain  to  be  accounted  for.  The  Taming  of  the  Shrew  and 
King  John  must  have  been  allowed  to  pass  as  reprints  of 
the  old  plays,  The  Taming  of  A  Shrew  and  The  Troublesome 
Reign  of  John,  King  of  England,  on  which  they  were 
founded.  A  Shrew  had  been  registered  and  published  by 
Peter  Short  in  1 594,  and  sold  for  him  by  Burby.  Dr.  Greg 
thinks  that  Humfrey  Lownes,  who  married  Short's  widow, 
might  have  claimed  it  But  Burby  had  transferred  it  to 
Ling  in  1607  and  from  Ling  it  had  passed  to  Smethwick. 
The  Troublesome  Reign  had  been  successively  issued  by 
Sampson  Clarke,  John  Helme,  and  Thomas  Dewes.    It 
had  never  been  registered,  and  there  seems  to  have  been 
no  copyright.  We  are  left  to  speculate  why  Pericles  was 
excluded,  Pavier  appears  to  have  had  as  good  a  claim  to 


Chap.V  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  141 
it  as  any  one,  except  perhaps  Blount  himself.  At  any  rate, 
his  widow  transferred  his  'right  in  Shakesperes  plaies  or 
any  of  them'  to  Edward  Brewster  and  Robert  Bird  in  1 626, 
and  Bird  transferred  Pericles  to  Richard  Cotes  in  1 630.  It 
can  hardly  be  that  a  more  satisfactory  text  than  that  of  the 
Quarto  was  not  available,  for  there  were  revivals  in  1619 
and  1 63 1.1  No  doubt  it  was  known  to  be  only  in  part 
Shakespeare's,  but  Henry  VIII^  which  was  in  like  case,  to 
say  nothing  of  some  earlier  plays,  whose  history  may  have 
been  forgotten,  were  not  excluded.  The  Two  Noble  Kins- 
men, however,  was,  and  was  published  in  Quarto,  as  by 
Fletcher  and  Shakespeare,  in  1634. 

The  Folio  is  arranged  in  three  separately  paginated 
sections,  for  comedies,  histories,  and  tragedies  respectively. 
Troilus  and  Cressida  and  Cymbeline  rank  as  tragedies.  The 
histories  are  in  chronological  order,  but  there  may  have 
been  some  half-hearted  attempt  to  put  comedie"s  and 
tragedies  not  previously  printed  at  the  beginnings  and 
ends  of  their  sections.  There  are  no  half-title-pages  for 
the  sections  or  for  the  individual  plays.  No  sufficient 
reason  has  been  shown  for  supposing  that  the  three  sec- 
tions were  set  up  concurrently,  or  that  any  presses  other 
than  those  of  the  Jaggards  were  normally  used.  The  types 
and  most  of  the  ornaments  recur  in  other  books  printed 
by  them.  There  are  908  pages  in  all,  of  which  a  few  are 
blank.  Misprints,  both  in  the  pagination  and  in  the  sig- 
natures, complicate  the  collation.2  Some  of  these,  and 
others  in  the  text,  were  corrected  during  the  course  of  the 
printing,  and  are  not  found  in  all  examples.3  Minor  ir- 
regularities have  affected  the  treatment  of  2  Henry  IV  and 
Winters  Tale**  Something  more  important  must  have 
happened  in  the  case  of  Troilus  and  Cressida.  Apparently 
the  original  intention  was  to  put  it  in  the  middle  of  the 
tragedies,  but  the  printing  was  suspended,  and  at  the  last 
moment,  possibly  after  the  preliminary  matter  had  been 

1  Cf.  App.  D.  loughby  adds  others  in  RJ&.S.  iv.  343; 

*  Pollard,  F.  Q.  108,  gives  one,  to-  v,  198,  and  4  Library,  be.  385. 

gether  with  many  bibliographical  de-  *  Cf.  p.  174- 

tails  not  necessary  here.  E.  E.  Wil-  *  Cf.  pp.  380,  4**- 


H2  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.V 
printed,  it  was  inserted  at  the  beginning  of  that  section.1 
Some  hitch  in  the  negotiations  for  the  copyright  may  have 
arisen.  The  preliminary  matter  itself  is  differently  ordered 
in  different  examples.  But  Professor  Pollard  has  shown, 
upon  the  evidence  of  signatures,  conjunct  leaves,  and  the 
presence  and  absence  of  watermarks,  that  the  intended 
order  was  probably  that  found  in  the  Grenville  copy  in 
the  British  Museum,  This  gives  (a)  verses  to  the  reader, 
on  the  portrait,  by  Ben  Jonson ;  (£)  the  title-page  and  por- 
trait on  an  inserted  leaf;  (c)  an  epistle  to  the  Earls  of  Pem- 
broke and  Montgomery,  by  Heminges  and  Condell;  (cT) 
an  epistle  to  the  readers,  by  the  same;  (<?)  commendatory 
verses  by  Ben  Jonson  and  Hugh  Holland ;  (/)  a  'Catalogue' 
of  the  plays,  from  which  Troilus  and  Cressida  is  omitted; 
(g)  commendatory  verses  by  Leonard  Digges  and  an  un- 
known I.  M.;  (K)  a  head-title  and  'The  Names  of  the 
Principall  Actors  in  all  these  Playes',2  The  portrait  is 
found  in  more  than  one  state.3  Steevens  called  attention 
to  some  parallels  between  the  epistle  to  the  readers  and 
the  works  of  Ben  Jonson,  and  suggested  that  he  wrote 
part  of  it  and  revised  the  rest.  Professor  Pollard  offers  an 
alternative  in  Blount,  who  showed  some  literary  facility  iri 
epistles  to  his  editions  of  Marlowe's  Hero  and  Leander 
(1598)  and  Lyly's  Sixe  Court  Comedies  (1632).  Jonson's 
claim  seems  to  me  on  the  whole  the  better.*  The  research  of 
Sir  Sidney  Lee  has  located  over  1 80  extant  examples  of  the 
First  Folio,  of  which  only  fourteen  are  in  a  perfect  state  of 
preservation.  As  a  rule,  leaves  have  gone  at  the  beginning 
and  end.  The  Grenville  example  in  the  British  Museum  is 
as  good  as  any.  The  largest  known  measures  I3fx8f 
inches.  The  only  example  of  which  a  continuous  history 
can  be  traced  is  now  in  the  collection  of  Mr.  H.  C.  Folger. 
It  was  originally  bought  in  1628  by  William  Sheldon  of 
Weston  in  Warwickshire,  The  example  owned  by  the 

'  Cf.  p.  441.  between  (J)  and  (*).  This  would  put 

*  McKerrow,  162,  suggests  that  con-  all  the  commendatory  verses  together. 

fusion  may  have  been  caused  by  fold-  »  Cf.  vol.  ii,,  p.  240,  and  Plates 

ing  the  sheet  containing  (g)  and  (A)  the  XXVI,  XXVII. 

wrong  way  round,  and  that  possibly  *'  The  epistles  and  commendatory 

they  should  come,  in  reverse  order,  verses  are  in  App.  B,  nos.  1-liii. 


Chap.V    THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          143 

Bodleian  in  1624  was  sold  when  the  Third  Folio  appeared 
in  1 663,  and  has  recently  been  recovered.  Various  guesses 
have  been  made  as  to  the  probable  size  of  the  edition; 
Dr.  Greg  points  out  that  a  sale  of  less  than  1,000  copies 
would  hardly  have  repaid  the  publishers,  unless  the  Earls 
of  Pembroke  and  Montgomery  showed  munificence.1 
Jaggard's  interest  in  Shakespeare's  plays  was  transferred 
by  his  widow  to  Thomas  and  Richard  Cotes  about  1 9  June 
1627,  and  Blount's  to  Robert  Allot  on  16  November 
i630.2  The  Second  Folio  was  printed  by  Thomas  Cotes 
for  Allot,  Smethwick,  Aspley,  Richard  Hawkins,  and 
Richard  Meighen  in  1632.  Hawkins  had  acquired  the 
copyright  of  Othello  and  Meighen  that  of  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor.  The  Third  Folio  was  printed  for  Philip  Chet- 
winde,  who  had  married  Allot's  widow,  in  1663,  and  to 
a  second  issue  of  1664  were  appended  reprints  of  Pericles 
and  of  the  'apocryphal'  London  Prodigal,  Thomas  Lord 
Cromwell,  i  Sir  John  Oldcastle,  Puritan,  Yorkshire  Tragedy, 
and  LocrineJ  The  Fourth  Folio  was  printed  for  a  syndi- 
cate of  booksellers  in  1685.  These  later  Folios  and  the 
post-i623  Quartos  are  of  little  value  for  textual  criticism. 
Upon  the  nature  of  the  copy  which  reached  the  pub- 
lishers, first  for  the  Quartos  and  afterwards  for  the  First 
Folio,  the  amount  of%authority  to  be  attached  to  the  tradi- 
tional texts,  as  representative  of  what  Shakespeare  actually 
wrote,  must  in  the  last  resort  depend.  I  have  already  cited 
the  claim  of  the  First  Folio,  on  its  title-page  and  in  its 
head-title,  that  its  plays  are  derived  from  the  author's 
'originals'.*  And  this  receives  some  expansion  in  the 
epistle  to  the  readers,  where  Heminges  and  Condell 
profess — 

so  to  haue  published  them,  as  where  (before)  you  were  abusM 
with  diuerse  stolne,  and  surreptitious  copies,  maimed,  and  deformed 
by  the  frauds  and  stealthes  of  injurious  impostors,  that  expos'd 

1  The  price  of  the  Folio  may  have  *  Arber,  iv.  182,  243. 

been  about  £i  and  that  of  a  Quarto  3  Cf.  ch.  x. 

about  6<£,  but  the  question  is  obscure;  4  Cf.  p.  96. 
c£.  McKerrow,  133. 


144  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.V 
them:  euen  those,  are  now  offer'd  to  your  view  cur'd,  and  perfect 
of  their  limbes;  and  all  the  rest,  absolute  in  their  numbers,  as  he 
concerned  them. 

An  epistle,  like  a  title-page,  is  an  advertisement,  rather 
than  an  affidavit.  But  while  a  desire  to  exalt  the  merit  of 
the  Folio  is  apparent,  it  would  be  unreasonable  to  ignore 
altogether  the  stress  laid  upon  the  fidelity  of  the  texts  to 
the  original  intentions  of  the  author.  The  eighteenth- 
century  editors,  impressed  by  corruptions  and  signs  of  stage 
manipulation,  took  the  statement  of  Heminges  and  Con- 
dell  rather  lightly.  Johnson  in  1765  wrote  of  the  plays: 

They  were  immediately  copied  for  the  actors,  and  multiplied  by 
transcript  after  transcript,  vitiated  by  the  blunders  of  the  penman, 
or  changed  by  the  affectation  of  the  player;  perhaps  enlarged  to 
introduce  a  jest  or  mutilated  to  shorten  the  representation;  and 
printed  at  last  without  the  concurrence  of  the  author,  without  the 
consent  of  the  proprietor,  from  compilations  made  by  chance  or  by 
stealth  out  of  the  separate  parts  written  for  the  theatre:  and  thus 
thrust  into  the  world  surreptitiously  and  hastily,  they  suffered 
another  depravation  from  the  ignorance  of  the  printers,  as  every 
man  who  knows  the  state  of  the  press  in  that  age  will  readily 
conceive. 

Modern  research,  based  upon  a  closer  evaluation  of  the 
texts  themselves,  a  wider  knowledge  of  the  methods  of 
players  and  printers,  and  in  particular  a  study  of  the 
manuscripts  described  in  Chapter  IV,  has  brought  many 
qualifications  to  this  judgement.  But  the  doctrine  of 
multiplied  transcripts  has  died  hard,  and  it  was  still  pos- 
sible for  Sir  Sidney  Lee  to  maintain  in  1925,  as  regards 
the  Quartos,  that  'the  publication  of  separate  plays  was 
deemed  by  theatrical  shareholders,  and  even  by  dramatists, 
injurious  to  their  interests',  and  that  'as  a  rule,  the  pub- 
lisher seems  to  have  bought  of  an  actor  one  of  the  copies 
of  the  play  wl^ch  it  was  necessary  for  the  manager  to 
provide  for  the  company1;  and  as  regards  the  Folio,  that 
'external  and  internal  evidence  renders  it  highly  impro- 
bable that  Shakespeare's  autographs  were  at  the  printer's 
disposal',  that  the  existing  theatrical  manuscripts  were 
destroyed  at  the  Globe  fire  in  1613,  that  the  library  was 


Chap.  V  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  145 
'replenished*  from  transcripts  in  the  private  possession  of 
actors  or  from  'fair  copies'  which  had  been  presented  to 
friends  and  patrons,  and  that  these  were  the  foundation 
of  the  new  texts  of  I623.1  There  are  several  statements 
here  which  invite  comment.  It  is  true  that  there  are  many 
indications  of  a  desire  on  the  part  of  acting  companies  to 
control  the  transmission  of  plays  to  the  press.  They  are 
most  frequent,  as  it  happens,  in  the  case  of  the  Chamber- 
lain's and  King's  men.  They  begin  with  Roberts's  entry 
of  Merchant  of  Venice  in  1597,  made  conditional  on  a 
licence  from  the  Lord  Chamberlain.  This  certainly  sug- 
gests that  the  company  were  using  the  influence  of  their 
patron  to  protect  themselves  against  publishers  who  hard 
not  come  to  terms  with  them.  And  perhaps  a  similar 
inference  is  to  be  drawn  from  the  following  memoranda, 
which  appear  on  a  spare  page  of  the  Stationers'  Register? 

My  lord  chamberlens  metis  plaies  Entred 

viz. 

27  May  1600     A  moral  of  clothe  breches  and  veluet  hose 
To  master 
Robertas 

27  May  AUarum  to  London 

Tohym. 

4  August! 

As  you  like  yt,  a  booke 
Henry  the  ffift,  a  booke 


Every  man  in  his  humour,  a  booke 


to  be  staied 


The  Commedie  of  muche  A  doo  about 
nothing  a  booke 

Of  the  four  'staied'  plays,  Every  Man  In  His  Humour  and 
Much  Ado  About  Nothing  were  regularly  registered  later  in 
August  1600  and  published  in  good  texts.  There  was  no 
Quarto  of  As  Tou  Like  It.  But  the  stay,  whatever  its 
nature,  did  not  prevent  the  appearance  in  1600  of  a  bad 
text  of  Henry  Vwc  the  acknowledgement  of  copyright  when 
it  was  transferred  on  August  14  of  that  year.  Professor 

1  Lee,  ioo,  548,  559.  "further  aucthoritie*.    A  Larum  for 

*  Arber,  iii.  37.  The  marginal  notes  London  was  printed  in  1602  (Etisc. 

refer  to  Roberts's  entries  (Arber,  iii.  Stage,  iv.  z).    No  edition  of  Clothe 

x6x),  both  of  which  were  subject  to  Breches  is  known. 
3142.1                                              L 


146  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.V 
Pollard  thinks  that  the  Chamberlain's  men,  perhaps  un- 
willing to  invoke  their  patron  too  often,  fell  back  upon  a 
plan  of  employing  Roberts  to  make  conditional  blocking 
entries,  which  were  not  to  be  acted  upon,  but  would  keep 
out  other  publishers,  and  that  Blount's  entries  of  1608 
were  meant  to  serve  a  similar  purpose.1  If  so,  the  plan 
was  not  particularly  successful,  since  it  did  not  stop  the 
bad  texts  of  Hamlet  and  Pericles,  or  of  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor  which  Roberts  did  not  enter,  or  prevent  Bonian 
and  Walley  from  publishing  Troilus  and  Cressida  in  spite 
of  the  opposition  of  the  'grand  possessors'.  I  agree  with 
Professor  Pollard  that  there  is  no  reason  to  regard  the 
operations  of  Roberts  as  fraudulent.  But  that  he  was  an 
agent  of  the  players  seems  to  me  very  disputable.  The 
terms  of  the  Merchant  of  Venice  entry  do  not  suggest  that 
they  were  relying  on  him.  That  his  other  entries,  except 
in  the  case  of  Hamlet,  were  conditional,  is  hardly  relevant. 
They  are  not,  like  that  for  Merchant  of  Venice,  distinguish- 
able in  form  from  many  entries  by  other  publishers,  in 
which  the  further  authority  required  was  pretty  clearly  the 
allowance  of  an  episcopal  licenser.2  Moreover  an  uncon- 
ditional entry  would  have  served  Professor  Pollard's  as- 
sumed purpose  just  as  well.  Roberts  was  a  printer,  and  his 
object  in  making  the  entries  may  well  have  been  to  transfer 
them  to  another  stationer  in  return  for  the  printing  rights. 
Perhaps  it  was  not  always  attained.  But  he  did  print 
Merchant  of  Venice  for  Heyes  in  1600,  if  not  earlier;  and 
although  he  did  not  print  Qi  of  Hamlet,  he  did  print  Q2 
for  Ling  in  1604.  And  we  must  surely  assume  that  the 
copyrights  of  Heyes  and  Ling,  acknowledged  later,  were 
derived  by  transfer  from  Roberts.  One  way  or  another, 
the  King's  men  seem  to  have  been  successful  in  safe- 
guarding most  of  their  Shakespearean  plays  during  the 
m  reign  ofjames,  and  from  1619  onwards  th^y  had,  as  has 
already  been  shown,  protections  from  successive  Lords 
Chamberlain*3  Whether  other  companies  shared  these 
before  1637  is  uncertain.  But  they  had  the  same  problem 

«  Pollard,  S.  F.  36, 42.  »  EUx-Stage,  in.  169. 

3  a.  p.  135. 


Chap.V  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  147 
to  face,  and  did  their  best  to  protect  themselves.  We  find 
the  Admiral's  in  1600  giving  the  printer  40,?.  *to  staye  the 

ginting  of  Patient  Gresell'.  The  agreement  of  the  King's 
evels  syndicate  in  1608  contains  a  clause  forbidding  the 
individual  partners  to  print  the  play-books.  Heywood,  in 
the  epistle  to  his  English  Traveller  of  1633,  tells  us  that 
some  of  his  plays  'are  still  retained  in  the  hands  of  some 
Actors,  who  thinke  it  against  their  peculiar  profit  to  haue 
them  come  in  print'.1  He  is  no  doubt  referring  mainly  to 
Christopher  Beeston,  who  held  most  of  the  plays  of  Queen 
Anne's  men,  for  whom  Heywood  had  written.  The  state- 
ment in  the  First  Folio  that  some  'surreptitious'  plays  did 
get  into  print  can  also  be  confirmed  from  Heywood.2  In 
the  epistle  to  his  Rape  of  Lucrece  (1608),  he  takes  credit 
for  not  being  one  of  those  who  'have  used  a  double  sale 
of  their  labours,  first  to  the  Stage,  and  after  to  the  presse', 
and  says  that  he  now  only  prints  because  'some  of  my 
plaies  have  (unknown  to  me,  and  without  any  of  my 
direction)  accidentally  come  into  the  Printers  handes  and 
therfore  so  corrupt  and  mangled  (copied  onely  by  the  eare) 
that  I  have  bene  as  unable  to  knowe  them,  as  ashamde  to 
challenge  them*.  So,  too,  in  a  late  prologue  for  a  revival  of 
his  If  Tou  Know  notMe^  Tou  Know  Nobody,  he  'taxeth  the 
most  corrupted  copy  now  imprinted,  which  was  published 
without  his  consent',  by  Nathaniel  Butter  in  1605,  and 
says  that — 

Some  by  stenography  drew 
The  plot:  put  it  in  print:  (scarce  one  word  trew:) 

Various  reasons  have  been  offered  for  the  reluctance  of  the 
players  to  allow  printing.  Perhaps  they  thought^  as  some 
managers  are  said  still  to  think,  that  the  competition  of  a 
book  would  diminish  their  takings.3  It  is  often  held  that 
what  they  feared  was  the  appropriation  of  their  plays  for 
acting  by  other  companies.  About  this  I  am  rather  scep- 
tical. It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  hold,  with  Miss  Al- 
bright, that  there  was  a  common  law  stage-right,  which 
would  have  prevented  appropriation.4  A  common  law 

1  Eli*.  Stage,  ii.  645  iii.  183, 292, 3 19.         3  McKerrow,  143. 
3  Ibid.  Hi.  342,  344.  4  Albright,  2x7. 

L2 


148  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.V 
right,  laid  down  by  no  court,  cannot  be  improvised  for 
argumentative  ends.  A  recorded  action  for  a  wrongly 
withheld  'book*  in  Downton  v.  Slater  was  merely  for  the 
value  of  the  corporeal  book  and  for  damages  arising  from 
its  detention,  and  in  fact  the  court  only  awarded  the  value 
of  the  book.1  But  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  there  was 
some  comity  among  the  London  companies  in  the  matter.2 
Very  likely  this  would  not  cover  plays  acted  by  a  company 
which  had  dropped  out  of  the  London  theatres.  Shake- 
speare seems  to  have  been  able  to  use  the  old  Troublesome 
Reign  of  John,  Famous  Victories  of  Henry  V>  and  King  Leir, 
two  certainly  and  the  third  probably  Queen's  plays,  and 
the  old  Taming  of  A  Shrew,  a  Pembroke's  play,  at  any  rate 
as  sources.  The  company  which  originally  produced  The 
Spanish  Tragedy  is  unknown.  The  Admiral's  revived  it 
with  'adicyons'  in  1 602.  But  the  Chamberlain's  must  also 
have  played  it,  and  probably  about  the  same  time,  since 
the  authentic  version  of  the  elegy  on  Burbadge  names 
*ould  Heironymoe'  as  one  of  his  parts,  and  in  3  Parnassus 
he  is  represented  as  trying  a  novice  in  it.3  It  is  even  pos- 
sible that  the  edition  of  1602  may  contain  the  version  of 
the  Chamberlain's  and  not  the  Admiral's  men.  For  in- 
vasion by  one  company  of  the  legitimate  repertory  of 
another  there  is  very  little  evidence.  I  do  not  think  that 
the  case  of  The  Malcontent  can  be  so  accounted.  It  was 
originally  a  Blackfriars  play,  but  was  given  also  by  the 
King's  men,  with  'additions',  including  an  induction,  in 
which  comes  this  dialogue: 
Sly.  ...  I  would  know  how  you  came  by  this  play. 
GondelL  Faith,  sir,  the  book  was  lost;  and  because  'twas  pity  so 

good  a  play  should  be  lost,  we  found  it  and  play  it 
Sly.  I  wonder  you  would  play  it,  another  company  having  interest 

in  it. 
CondelL  Why  not  Malevole  in  folio  with  us,  as  Jeronimo  in 

decimo-sexto  with  them?  They  taught  us  a  name  for  our  play  5 

we  call  it  One  for  Another. 

1  ESx.  Stage,  ii.  157.  they  did,  I  am  not  sure  that  it  would 

*  Greg  suggests  (&&£  iv.  96)  that  hurt   the    London   companies    very 

provincial  companies  may  have  made  much. 

up  their  repertories  from  prints,  but  if        3  EU&.  Stog',  ii.  309, 


Chap.V  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  149 
Surely  this  is  chaff;  one  does  not  advertise  a  real  theft  in 
an  induction.  I  take  it  that  the  King's  and  the  Queen's 
Revels  shared  The  Malcontent  by  arrangement,  just  as  the 
King's  and  Paul's  shared  Satiromastix.1  But  of  course  a 
mere  comity  leaves  room  for  abuses,  and  ultimately  the 
Household  officers  stepped  in  to  protest  stage-rights  as  well 
as  printing-rights.  Heminges  paid  Sir  Henry  Herbert  ^5 
in  1627  'to  forbid  the  playing  of  Shakespeare's  plays  to 
the  Red  Bull  company',  and  the  Lord  Chamberlain  in 
1639  issued  a  mandate  to  rival  companies  not  to  'inter- 
meddle* with  William  Beeston's  repertory  at  the  Cock- 
pit.2 One  of  the  plays  named  in  this  is  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher's  Father's  own  Son>  which  was  in  fact  printed 
in  the  same  year,  under  the  alternative  title  of  Monsieur 
Thomas^  as  'Acted  at  the  Private  House  in  Blacke  Fryers', 
where  the  King's  men  must  have  given  it.  Miss  Albright 
thinks  that  these  documents  merely  record  arbitrations  on 
disputes  as  to  acting-rights,  which  arose  when  players 
changed  companies.3  But  whether  this  is  so  or  not,  they 
had  authority  behind  them.  If  we  set  nervousness  as  to 
stage-rights  aside,  the  attitude  of  the  players  towards 
printing  remains  completely  intelligible.  It  was  mainly 
determined  by  financial  considerations.  They  had  a  valu- 
able property  in  their  manuscripts,  and  they  did  not  in- 
tend, either  that  these  should  be  used  except  when  it  was 
convenient  to  them,  or  that  the  purchase  money  paid  by 
the  stationers  should  pass  into  other  hands.  This  may  not 
have  been  much.  The  fee  for  a  pamphlet — and  a  play 
would  rank  as  no  more — is  said  to  have  been  about  £2.* 
But  it  was  some  offset  against  the  £6  or  j£io  which  the 
author  had  received.  Philip  Herbert's  letter  of  1637, 
carefully  read,  seems  to  put  the  whole  matter  on  a  financial 

1  EUx.  Stage,  iii.  293,  431.   Jero-  *  Herbert,  64;  Far.  iii.  159.    The 

nmo  here  is  probably  The  First  Part  order   of    1639    is   in   P.&O.    Ld. 

oflerommo  (EE&.  Stage,  iv.  22),  per-  CAamberlatn's  Records,*?.  134,  p.  337, 

haps  written  for  the  Chamberlain's  as  and   has    'Cockpitt    Playes   appro- 

an  introduction  to  Span.  Trag.9  but  pried*  in  the  margin;  cf.  M.S.C.  i. 

printed  in  1605  in  a  corrupt  and  pro-  364. 

bably  'reported*  form,  which  suggests  '  Albright,  230. 

performances  by  boys.  *  Pollard,  S.F.  24. 


ISO  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.V 
basis.  The  players  had  bought  'at  dear  rates*.  They 
would  have  'detriment  and  prejudice*  if  their  plays  were 
'stolen',  and  His  Majesty's  service  would  suffer,  which 
was  Herbert's  reason  for  intervention.  The  fluctuations  in 
the  output  of  printed  plays  also  suggest  the  prevalence  of 
economic  considerations.  It  was  greatest  in  1 594  when  the 
companies  were  in  straits  owing  to  the  plague;  in  1600, 
when  the  Chamberlain's  and  Admiral's  had  had  to  face 
the  cost  of  new  theatres;  in  1607  when  the  stock  of  the 
ruined  King's  Revels  came  on  the  market.  Apart  from 
the  bad  texts,  there  is  really  no  a  priori  reason  to  suppose 
that  copy  for  the  Elizabethan  Quartos  of  Shakespeare 
reached  the  stationers  in  any  other  way  than  through  a 
normal  process  of  sale  by  the  companies.  Let  us  credit 
these  with  a  higher  motive  in  the  desire  to  replace  the  bad 
texts  of  Love's  Labour  V  Lost,  Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  Hamlet 
by  more  commendable  versions.  Whether  Shakespeare 
himself  had  anything  to  say  in  the  matter,  we  cannot  tell. 
But  the  prefatory  epistles  by  other  authors,  which  accom- 
pany so  many  plays,  suggest  that  some  concession  had  to 
be  made  by  the  companies  to  literary  ambition,  and  pro- 
vide further  evidence  in  favour  of  regular  publication.1  It 
is  true  that  a  large  proportion  of  these  were  plays  from  the 
boys'  companies,  where  the  authors  may  have  had  some 
share  of  control.2  It  is  true,  also,  that  the  authors  them- 
selves sometimes  complain  that  their  hands  were  forced  by 
the  fear  of  unsupervised  printing.3  But  this  was  largely  a 
convention,  inherited  from  the  courtiers,  who  affected  to 
write  for  their  friends  alone. 

I  have  been  elaborate  about  the  relation  of  the  com- 
panies to  the  publishers  because,  if  Sir  Sidney  Lee  were 
right,  the  textual  authority  of  the  Quartos  would  be  seri- 
ously diminished.  His  theory  that  the  Folio  texts  were 
derived  from  dopies  belonging  to  actors  or  private  persons 
and  collected  after  the  fire  at  the  Globe  depreciates  these 
in  their  turn.  But  here  it  is  possible  to  be  more  brief. 
There  is  no  proof  that  any  manuscripts  were  destroyed  at 

,  ao&  gives  a  partial  list.        *  Ibid.  iii.  344, 44x5  Albright,  zo8- 
13. 


Chap.V   THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          151 
the  Globe  fire.  The  numerous  accounts  of  this  say  nothing 
about  them.  For  what  they  are  worth,  one  tells  us  that 
the  silken  flag  was  burnt,  and  another  that  'nothing  did 
perish  but  wood  and  straw  and  a  few  forsaken  cloaks*. 
Very  likely  this  means  no  more  than  that  no  lives  were 
lost.  Sir  Sidney  cites  as  his  sole  evidence  the  fact,  which  is 
recorded,  that  at  the  Fortune  fire  in  1621  the  Palsgrave's 
men  lost  their  play-books,1  But  to  argue  thus,  without  any 
regard  for  the  rules  of  logic,  from  the  known  separable 
accidents  of  one  case  to  the  unknown  separable  accidents 
of  another,  is  not  permissible.  The  books  of  the  King's  men 
may  quite  well  have  been  saved,  or,  as  has  often  been  sug- 
gested, they  may  have  been  at  the  Blackfriars.    The  Al- 
lowed' book  of  Winter's  Tale>  that  of  Honest  Man's  Fortune, 
and  the  stage-copy  of  Bonduca  were  all  at  one  time  or  other 
missing.  The  two  latter  must  have  been  recovered  before 
the  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  Folio  of  1 647  was  printed,  and 
when  a  transcript  of  Bonduca  was  wanted,  it  was  supplied, 
not  from  the  sources  indicated  by  Sir  Sidney,  but  from  the 
author's  'foule  papers'.2  And  certainly  the  loss  of  Winter's 
Tale  can  hardly  have  been  due  to  the  fire,  as  a  revival  in 
1618  and  possibly  another  in  1619-20  had  intervened. 
The  study  of  the  extant  theatrical  manuscripts,  a  small 
sample  indeed  out  of  the  many  hundreds  that  must  have 
been  written,  gives  no  support  to  Sir  Sidney's  statement 
that  it  was  'necessary*  for  the  manager  to  provide  copies 
for  the  company.  A  priori,  one  might  perhaps  have  ex- 
pected that  the  author's  original  would  have  been  laid  up 
for  ultimate  reference  in  the  theatre  archives,  and  tran- 
scripts made  for  submission  to  the  Master  of  the  Revels 
and  for  the  use  of  the  prompter.   It  is  clear  that  in  fact 
the  original  itself  sometimes  became  both  the  'allowed' 
copy  and  the  prompt-copy.  The  individual  actors  needed 
no  copies  except  their  'parts'.   On  the  other  hand,  the 
manuscripts  give  hardly  less  support  to  the  notion  of 'con- 
tinuous copy',  which  dominates  the  reconstructions  of 
Professor  Wilson;  the  notion,  that  is,  of  'the  long-lived 
manuscript  in  the  tiring-house  wardrobe,  periodically 

1  Etiz.  Stage,  ii.  419*  44*-  *  Cf.  p.  125. 


152  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.V 
taken  out  for  a  revival  and  as  often  worked  upon  by  fresh 
hands,  abridged  and  expanded,  recast  to  fit  the  capabilities 
of  new  performers,  brightened  with  current  topical  allu- 
sions, written  up  to  date  to  suit  new  tastes  in  poetic 
diction'.1  Certainly  transcripts  were  used  for  prompt- 
copies  as  well  as  originals;  and  indeed  it  stands  to  reason 
that  the  more  a  book-keeper  had  annotated  a  manuscript 
with  the  names  of  supernumeraries  and  other  jottings  for 
use  in  one  series  of  representations,  the  more  advantage 
there  would  be  in  making  a  transcript  at  a  revival.  A 
prompt-copy  had  above  all  things  to  be  clear  and  easy  to 
consult  at  a  glance.  We  do  not,  for  example,  find  sub- 
stituted names  of  fresh  supernumeraries  in  the  extant 
manuscripts.  The  same  consideration  would  point  to 
transcription  in  the  event  of  substantial  textual  revision,  in 
so  far  as  that  ever  took  place.2  When  Massinger  had  to 
recast  Believe  as  Tou  Li$t>  he  wrote  out  the  old  matter 
with  the  new;  and  the  textual  marginalia  and  slipped  in- 
sertions which  we  do  find  in  the  manuscripts  are,  with  one 
exception,  of  very  limited  extent.  The  exception  is  Sir 
Thomas  More,  and  on  a  generalization  from  this  obscure 
and  probably  abnormal  case  the  doctrine  of  continuous 
copy  is  mainly  founded.  Professor  Wilson's  point  that 
transcription  would  cost  time  and  money  cannot  weigh 
much  against  obvious  convenience;  and  it  is  safer  to  allow 
for  the  possibility  that  there  may  have  been  a  good  deal 
of  it  in  the  theatres,  even  if  the  career  of  Ralph  Crane  does 
not  give  us  a  glimpse  of  that  recently  banned  ghost,  the 
stage  scdvener.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  reason 
whatever  why  some,  both  of  the  Quarto  and  the  Folio  texts, 
should  not  have  been  set  up  from  Shakespeare's  auto- 
graphs; and  a  use  of  these  for  the  Folio  is  the  natural 
interpretation  both  of  the  epistle  to  the  readers  and  of  the 
stress  laid  on  originals  in  the  title-page  and  head-title.  It 
would  be  taking  the  language  too  literally  to  argue  that 
transcripts  were  in  no  case  substituted,  and  where  there 
are  parallel  texts,  we  are  often  driven  by  their  disagree- 
ment to  conclude  that  one  or  other,  if  not  both,  must  be 

1  Disintegration  of  Shakespeare,  18;  cf.  Wilson,  Temp,  xxriii,  79.         *  C£  ch.  vii. 


Chap.V    THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          153 

derived  from  such  a  source.  In  any  case  it  would  be 
pressing  Heminges  and  Condell  too  hard  to  infer  that  the 
originals  had  been  completely  purged  from  the  results  of 
after-touching.  Both  in  Folio  and  in  Quarto  texts,  it  is 
often  possible  to  find  traces  of  musical  or  spectacular 
elaboration,  or  of  the  book-keeper  establishing  his  prompt- 
copy.  In  mere  stage-directions  it  is  difficult,  where  there 
is  only  one  text,  to  distinguish  his  hand  from  that  of  an 
author  writing,  as  Shakespeare  wrote,  in  full  knowledge  of 
stage  conditions,  although  a  modification  may  sometimes 
be  suspected  from  the  form  of  the  wording  or  from  a 
duplication  of  substance.  Where  there  are  two  texts,  the 
book-keeper  may  show  himself  in  additional  notes  for 
music  or  other  noises,  in  divergence  from  the  author's 
details,  and  perhaps  most  unmistakably  in  'cuts'.1  One 
cannot  even  altogether  exclude  the  possibility  of  occasional 
recourse  to  a  transcript  made  not  as  a  prompt-copy,  but 
expressly  for  the  printer,  or  for  the  satisfaction  of  a  private 
owner.  Most  of  the  extant  examples  of  private  manu- 
scripts, however,  may  be  late,  and  the  reference  to  them  in 
the  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  Folio  of  1647  certainly  is.2 
They  may  not  have  become  usual  before  1619,  when  the 
Lord  Chamberlain's  protection  made  the  multiplication 
of  copies  less  risky. 

One  other  possibility  must  be  considered.  Malone's 
theory  of  the  construction  of  copy  for  the  printers  from 
actors'  'parts'  has  received  some  recent  favour,  notably 
from  Professor  Wilson.3  A  loss  of  prompt-copy,  through 
fire  or  other  cause,  is  generally  assumed,  together  with 
reliance  upon  a  'plot'  to  help  in  the  reconstruction.  A 
generation  obsessed  by  machinery  calls  the  method  'as- 
sembling'. One  would  suppose,  however,  that  both  parts 
and  plot,  if  preserved,  would  be  kept  with  the  prompt- 
copy,  and  that  the  loss  of  one  would  mean  the  loss  of  all. 
Certainly  the  'book'  and  'plot*  of  Seven  Deadly  Sins  were 
at  one  time  kept  together/  The  case  for  assembling  is 

1  Cf.  p.  235.  *  Cf.  p.'  125.       Texts  in  the  First  Folio  (1922,  Jan.  12, 

s  He  is  supported  by  Rhodes,  96.      T.L.S.). 
W.  J.  Lawrence  dissents  in  Assembled        *  Cf.  p.  124. 


154         THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO    Chap.V 
primarily  based  upon  the  Folio  texts  of  Two  Gentlemen  of 
Verona  and  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor.  These  have  a  com- 
mon feature  in  the  complete  or  almost  complete  absence 
of  stage-directions,  except  for  an  initial  entry  for  each 
scene,  in  which  all  the  characters  taking  part  in  that  scene 
are  named,  more  or  less  in  the  .order  of  their  appearance.1 
Somewhat,  but  not  quite  analogous,  is  Winter's  Tale. 
Here  are  the  same  comprehensive  initial  entries,  except  in 
two  scenes  (iv.  3 ;  v.  2),  but  in  some  cases  the  successively 
entering  characters  or  groups  of  characters  are  marked  off 
from  each  other  by  colons.  Moreover,  there  are  some  later 
stage-directions,  including  some  repetitions  of  entries  al- 
ready given.2  On  the  theory  the  initial  entries  are  taken 
from  plots.  These  could  of  course  provide  them.    It  is 
not  the  case,  however,  that  either  the  extant  plots  or  the 
one  extant  part,  that  of  Orlando,  are  witHbut  stage-direc- 
tions other  than  entries;  nor  do  the  texts  in  question  use 
the  characteristic  phrase  'to  them'  with  which  the  plots 
link  their  entries.  Professor  Wilson  uses  three  subsidiary 
arguments  in  support  of  assembling.  One  is  the  freedom 
of  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  from  textual  difficulties,  since 
a  part  must  be  made  clear,  even  if  the  prompt-copy  is 
confused;  although  he  is  not  at  a  loss  for  an  explanation 
when  the  text  of  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  turns  out  to  be 
far  from  lacking  in  textual  difficulties.   The  text  of  Or- 
lando's j>art  is  by  no  means  always  clear.  The  second  is 
the  printing  of  prose  in  capitalized  lines  of  varying  length, 
rather  like  verse,  which  is  certainly  curious,  and  which  he 
thinks  may  have  been  a  practice  in  writing  out  parts.3  The 
third  is  the  appearance  of  gag,  or  what  Professor  Wilson 
thinks  may  be  gag,  but  whether  gag  would  get  into  parts, 
and  on  the  other  hand  would  not  get  into  prompt-copy, 
I  am  not  sure.  Professor  Wilson  also  finds  assembling  in 
As  Tou  Like  It  and  Measure  for  Measure,  which  have  not 
grouped  entries,  but  have  a  paucity  of  stage-directions, 

'IM  not  sure  that  the  «itriesin         *  Rhodes,  99,  gives  the  facts  very 

Tw  Gent .  of  Ver.  iv.  2  and  Merry  inaccurately. 
JTivetofjr.v.  5  stricdy  follow  the        *Cf.p.i8x. 
order  of  appearance. 


Chap.V  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  155 
and  on  special  grounds  in  Comedy  of  Errors  and  Merchant 
of  Venice.1  There  would  be  no  substance  in  these  cases, 
unless  a  practice  of  assembling  could  be  better  established 
elsewhere.  I  do  not  think  that  assembling  is  inconceivable, 
as  a  last  resort  for  recovering  a  text,  when  no  original  or 
foul  papers  or  transcript  was  available.  But  surely  it  would 
be  a  very  laborious  and  difficult  business.  Cues,  at  any 
rate  in  Orlando^  do  not  give  the  names  of  the  speakers, 
and  they  often  consist  only  of  a  word  or  two,  which  might 
occur  at  more  than  one  speech-ending.  All  would  perhaps 
go  well  in  dialogue  between  a  couple  of  speakers,  but  if 
many  were  concerned,  the  book-keeper  would  be  con- 
fronted with  a  considerable  puzzle,  as  he  peered  in  search 
of  the  cue-words  from  one  to  another  of  half  a  dozen  rolls 
or  strips  cut  from  rolls  on  the  table  before  him.  I  should 
expect  tp  find  in  a  text  so  produced  two  kinds  of  error,  of 
which  examples  have  not  in  fact  been  brought  forward. 
One  would  be  a  false  sequence  of  speeches  and  another 
the  accidental  inclusion  of  cues  in  the  following  lines.  An 
alternative  explanation  of  the  grouped  entries  is  to  be 
found,  as  pointed  out  by  Dr.  Greg,  in  the  influence  of  the 
'classical'  method  of  scene-division  adopted  by  Ben  Jonson 
and  some  other  playwrights.  Here  each  new  grouping  of 
characters  begins  a  new  scene,  and  the  names  of  the  char- 
acters head  it.  Whether  the  adaptation  of  this  arrange- 
ment to  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  and  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor  and  in  part  to  Winter's  Tale  was  due,  as  Dr.  Greg 
thinks,  to  a  printer's  devil,  or  to  a  freak  of  the  author, 
must  be  matter  for  conjecture.2 

The  possibilities  left  open  make  it  necessary  to  consider 
the  origin  of  the  printers'  copy  for  each  pla^  as  a  separate 
problem,  in  the  light  of  such  literary,  scenic,  and  biblio- 
graphical indications  as  it  may  yield.  A  summary  treat- 
ment, inevitably  based  to  a  large  extent  on  the  work  of 
others,  is  alone  feasible  in  such  a  book  as  this,  but  in  the 
upshot,  some  classification  of  the  texts  may  be  attempted.3 

1  Cf.  ch.  ix.  3  Cf.  the  discussions  of  individual 

a  Greg,  Merry  Wives  ofW.  xvij  cf.     plays  in  ch.  ix. 
p.  125  and  Etix.  Stage,  iii.  200. 


156  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.V 
An  isolated  group  is  formed  by  the  corrupt  editions  of  the 
early  publishers,  2,  3  Henry  VI  (the  Contention)^  Romeo  and 
,  Juliet '(Qi\HenryP,Hamlet(Qi),Merry  Wives  of  Windsor. 
Professor  Pollard  has  conveniently  designated  these  as 
'Bad  Quartos',  They  differ  in  detail,  and  each  presents 
features  of  special  difficulty.  But  they  have  in  common  a 
measure  of  textual  corruption,  far  beyond  anything  which 
a  combination  of  bad  transcription  and  bad  printing  could 
explain.  Many  passages  are  only  intelligible  in  the  light 
of  the  better  texts  which  followed.  There  are  constant 
omissions  leaving  lacunae  in  the  sense,  constant  para- 
phrases,  constant  inversions  of  the  order  of  sentences,  and 
dislocations  in  the  sequence  of  dialogue  and  episodes.  The 
metre  is  bungled;  verse  lines  are  wrongly  divided;  prose 
is  printed  as  verse  and  verse  as  prose.  The  diction  betrays 
a  substitution  of  synonyms  or  loose  verbal  equivalents  or 
of  variant  inflections,  for  the  wording  intended  by  the 
author.  The-total  effect  is  one  of  perversion  and  vulgariza- 
tion. To  emend  is  futile;  it  is  incredible  that  Shakespeare 
should  have  written  or  the  Chamberlain's  men  presented 
such  texts.1  It  cannot  be  doubted  that  these  are  primarily 
the  versions  which  Heminges  and  Condell  stigmatized  as 
'surreptitious'.  Whether  a  surreptitious  origin  is  indicated 
by  the  circumstances  of  publication  seems  less  clear. 
There  was  due  registration  of  2  Henry  VI r,  which  may  per- 
haps be  taken  to  have  covered  3  Henry  VI>  and  of  Merry 
PPives  of  Windsor  and  Hamlet^  but  the  transactions  be- 
tween stationers  as  to  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  and  Hamlet 
look  rather  unusual,  and  copyright  for  Romeo  and  Juliet 
and  Henry  7  was  only  established  through  transfers.  The 
omission  of  the  publisher's  address  from  the  imprint  of 
Romeo  and  Juliet  is  also  exceptional,  but  one  can  hardly 
suppose  that  the  authorities  would  not  know  where  to 
find  Danter,  and  books  whose  promoters  really  feared 
pursuit  were  apt  to  bear  such  addresses  as  'Middleburg'  or 
'ouersea  in  Europe',  or  to  have  no  imprint  at  all.2  Certain 

'  Hubbard's  'edition'  of  the  Qi  of  (Nashe,  iii.  339)  and  the  'at  the  signe 

Haw.shows  the  futility.  of  the  crab  tree  cudgell  in  thwack- 

*  The  'at  a  place,  not  fane  from  a  coate  lane'  of  Pappe  with  en  hatchet 

Place*  of  An  Almond  for  a  Parrot  (Lyly,  iii.  393)  are  burlesques. 


Chap.V  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  157 
other  features  of  some  or  all  of  the  bad  texts  suggest  that 
the  copy  for  them  was  obtained,  not  by  transcription 
from  originals,  but  from  stage  performances  by  some  pro- 
cess of  reporting.  There  are  errors  which  may  be  due  to 
mishearing,  although  these  are  not  unlike  some  which  are 
made  by  printers  and  transcribers.1  There  are  unmetrical 
ejaculations  and  connective  words,  such  as  actors  intro- 
duce to  accompany  their  gestures  and  demonstrate  their 
indifference  to  the  blank  verse.  There  are  bits  of  gag. 
The  confusion  tends  to  be  greatest  in  bustling  episodes  _or 
in  the  rapid  interchange  of  dialogue  between  a  number  of. 
speakers.  In  Romeo  and  Juliet  and  Hamlet  there  are  stage- 
directions  which  look  like  the  attempts  of  a  spectator  to 
describe  the  action  seen  on  the  stage.  In  Hamlet^  con- 
versely, bits  of  action  seem  to  have  been  translated  into 
dialogue.  One  naturally  asks  what  kind  of  reporter  can 
have  been  at  work.  A  note-taker  in  the  audience  would 
almost  inevitably  have  attracted  attention.  Moreover,  there 
is  one  singular  feature,  apparent  in  all  the  texts  except 
Henry  7y  which  by  itself  seems  to  exclude  such  a  note- 
taker.  The  dislocation  of  matter  extends  to  the  incorpora- 
tion in  scenes  of  phrases  which  really  belong  to  earlier 
scenes  or  even  to  later  scenes.  A  long  interval  may 
separate  these  from  their  rightful  positions.  Such  'anti- 
cipations and  recollections'  imply  a  reporter  who  Has 
throughout  some  knowledge  of  the  play  as  a  whole,  and 
point  to  a  process,  not  of  direct  note-taking,  but  of 
reproduction  from  memory.  The  exhaustive  analyses Jby 
Dr.  Greg  of  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  and  of  the  analogous 
case  of  Orlando  Furioso  have  explored  the  possibilities  of 
memorization  as  a  method  of  textual  transmission,  and 
have  shown  them  to  be  fully  equal  to  the  production  of 
such  results  .as  the  bad  Quartos  exhibit.2  Speculation 
remains  open  as  to  the  status  and  identities  of  the  reporters. 
Obviously  the  members  of  the  company  which  had  per- 
formed a  play  would  have  better  opportunities  of  becoming 
roughly  familiar  with  its  course  and  wording  than  would 

xCf.  p.  180.  the  practice  of  the  seventeenth-century 

*  Albright,  311,  gives  parallels  from     Spanish  stage. 


158  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.V 
mere  spectators,  even  after  repeated  visits.  The  precise 
method  may  not  have  been  the  same  in  all  cases.  Dr.  Greg 
inclines  to  think  that  Orlando  was  collectively  reported  by 
a  group  of  actors,  each  in  his  turn  dictating  his  part,  and 
that  the  primary  object  was  to  reproduce  a  lost  prompt- 
copy,  rather  than  to  furnish  material  for  the  printers.1 
This  theory  implies  conditions  which  could  hardly  apply 
to  the  Chamberlain's  men's  plays.  Sometimes  certain 
scenes  are  better  reported  than  the  rest  and  are  linked  by 
a  common  character,  that  of  Marcellus  in  Hamlet^  that  of 
the  Host  in  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor.  Naturally  the  actors 
of  these  characters  have  incurred  suspicion  of  treachery. 
.It  is  a  hardly  tenable  view  that  it  would  be  possible  to 
prevent  individual  actors  from  obtaining,  at  performances 
or  rehearsals,  knowledge  of  scenes  during  which  they  were 
not  themselves  on  the  stage  or  waiting  their  calls  at  the 
stage-door.  But  no  doubt  they  would  be  most  successful 
in  rendering  dialogue  in  which  they  had  shared.  Where 
there  is  no  such  outstanding  character,  I  have  thought  it 
possible  that  the  reporter  may  have  been  a  prompter.  And 
in  some  cases  there  is  reason  to  think  that  the  help  of  a 
written  'part'  (3  Henry  7I\  Hamlet)  or  of  a  'plot'  (2,  3 
Henry  71)  may  have  been  available.  A  report  does  not, 
except  perhaps  in  Henry  7>  wholly  account  for  the  differ- 
ences between  the  bad  and  the  good  texts.  The  per- 
formances reported  or  later  performances  represented  by 
a  prompt-copy  may  have  been  subject  to  variations  in 
scenic  detail  or  by  cuts.  There  have  been  changes  in 
nomenclature  of  characters  in  Hamlet  and  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor.  A  little  rewriting  of  bits  of  2,  3  Henry  71  is  not 
unlikely.  Most  of  the  bad  Quartos  contain  passages  of 
non-Shakespearean  verse  which  amount  to  rather  more 
than  the  ordinary  padding  of  the  reporter.  This  has  led 
to  a  theory  that  the  texts  underlying  them  were  not 
the  completed  work  of  Shakespeare,  but  earlier  versions 

*  Fynes  Moryson  (Etiz.  Stt%e,  i.  L.  B.  Wright  (M.L.N.  xUii.  z$6)  gives 

343)  describes  the  travelling  companies  examples  of  plays  reproduced  from 

on  the  Continent  as   *pronowncing  parts  and  memory  for  performance  in 

pceces  and  patches  of  English  playes'.  the  eighteenth  century. 


Chap.V  THE  QUARTOS  'AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  159 
of  the  plays  by  other  hands,  only  partially  revised  by  him.1 
There  are,  however,  two  other  possibilities  to  be  con- 
sidered. In  the  first  place,  a  lapse  of  memory  may  have 
been  remedied  by  sheer  faking;  and  for  this  we  need  not 
call  in  a  hack  playwright,  since  many  actors,  as  Henslowe's 
records  show  us,  were  capable  of  putting  together  a  pky 
at  need.  In  the  second  place,  the  vagrant  memory  or  the 
reporter  did  not  stop  short  at  its  'anticipations  and  recol- 
lections' of  scenes  or  a  play  other  than  that  under  reproduc- 
tion. It  went  so  far  as  to  bring  in  matter  from  alien  plays. 
This  is  clearly  to  be  traced  in  2  Henry  VI,  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor,  and  Hamlet,  and  in  view  of  the  number  of  plays 
now  lost  with  which  every  actor  and  book-keeper  must 
have  been  familiar,  who  shall  say  what  limit  is  to  be  set 
to  borrowings  of  this  nature?  I  do  not  know  that  it  js 
possible  to  say  for  what  exact  purpose  the  reporting  of  a 
play  was  undertaken.  The  amount  which  a  bookseller 
would  pay  for  'copy*  is  not  likely  to  have  been  very 
tempting.  Dr.  Greg  is,  I  believe,  inclined  to  think  that 
the  primary  object  was  to  enable  a  company  to  perform 
a  play,  the  'book*  of  which  they  had  parted  with  or 
never  possessed.  But  a  company  which  performed  a 
play  without  having  the  allowance  of  the  Master  of  the 
Revels  endorsed  on  the  'book'  would  be  running  a  risk.2 
I  do  not  say  that  it  was  one  which  a  provincial  company 
in  straits  would  never  take.  Perhaps  these  were  the  'peeces 
and  patches  of  English  playes'  performed  abroad,  and 
were  sold  to  the  stationers  when  the  companies  came 
home,  as  useless  in  this  country. 

The  counter-theory  to  reporting  from  memorization  is 
reporting  by  shorthand.  This  art  was  in  its  infancy  during 
the  sixteenth  century.  The  first  system  since  Roman 
times  appeared,  after  some  private  experiments  of  his  own, 
in  Timothy  Bright's  Characterie,  an  Arte  of  shone,  swift 
and  Secrete  writing  by  Character  (i588).3  It  was  a  very 
cumbrous  one.  Each  letter  had  a  symbol,  but  except  in 

1  Cf.  p.  226.  a  A  reprint  by  J.  H.  Ford  (1888)  is 

*  Etix.  Stage,  iL  222.  shown  by  Roloff  to  be  inaccurate. 


160          THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO    Chap.V 
spelling  out  proper  names,  these  were  mainly  used  as  parts 
of  more  complex  symbols  or  'characters',  representing 
complete  words.   The  characters  were  short  bars,  placed 
in  various  positions  and  modified  at  either  end  by  angular 
or  curved  hooks.  There  were  570  of  them,  and  to  them 
corresponded  a  vocabulary  of  570  words,  the  characters 
for  which  the  scribe  had  to  learn  by  heart.  But  a  character 
might  stand  not  only  for  a  'primitive'  word,  such  as  a 
noun,  but  also  for  its  'derivatives',  such  as  verbs  and  ad- 
jectives, and  for  all  inflexions  both  of  the  primitive  and 
the  derivatives.  The  discrimination  was  left  to  the  intel- 
ligence of  the  note-taker  and  the  transcriber,  with  the  help 
in  a  few  cases  of  diacritical  marks  in  the  form  of  one  or 
more  dots  disposed  around  the  characters.    Further,  a 
character  might  also  stand,  by  what  Bright  called  the 
'consenting'  or  'dissenting1  method,  either  for  an  equiva- 
lent to  its  proper  word  or  for  a  word  of  opposite  sense; 
and  in  these  cases  the  note-taker  was  expected  to  write  the 
symbol  for  the  initial  letter  of  the  word  really  intended  to 
the  right  or  left  of  the  character,  as  the  case  might  be. 
Finally,  the  student  was  instructed  that  unless  the  very 
express  words  were  necessary,  the  sense  only  need  be 
taken  with  the  character;  that  is  to  say,  he  might  omit 
words  and  employ  paraphrases.    It  is  clear  that  a  use, 
and  in  particular  a  bungling  use,  of  this  system  might 
produce  some  of  the  features  of  our  bad  texts;   the 
paraphrases,  the  confusion  of  inflexions,  above  all  the 
substituted  equivalents.    A   diacritical  mark  is   easily 
omitted,  or  neglected  in  transcription.   It  might  explain 
the  omission  of  out-of-the-way  words,  for  which  even  the 
consenting  and  dissenting  methods  made  no  provision. 
It  would  not,  unless  the  bungling  was  very  exceptional, 
explain  the  numerous  cases  in  which  Bright's  vocabulary 
gives  a  simple  character  for  the  right  word  and  the  re- 
porter substitutes  the  wrong  one.  And  it  would  not,  any 
more  than  any  other  process  of  direct  note-taking,  explain 
the  anticipations  and  recollections  at  all.   A  more  sub- 
jective impression  is  that  the  system  was  altogether  too 
cumbrous  to  be  applied  to  anything  so  difficult  as  a  play. 


Chap.V  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  161 
There  are  examples  of  its  use  in  reporting  sermons.  But 
the  regular,  even  if  impassioned,  utterance  of  a  preacher, 
with  the  reporter  sitting  in  a  strategical  position  among 
a  quiet  audience,  is  one  thing.  The  give  and  take  of  several 
speakers,  in  the  hubbub  of  a  theatre,  complicated  by  the 
need  for  noting  speech-prefixes  and  the  fear  of  detection, 
is  quite  another.  It  is  fair  to  admit  that  German  students 
of  stenography,  on  the  other  hand,  believe  that  the  thing 
could  be  done  and  was  done,  although  I  do  not  know 
whether  they  have  put  their  view  to  the  test  of  practical 
experiment. 

Peter  Bales  in  The  Writing  Schoolmaster  (1590)  and  The 
Arte  of  Brachygraphy  (1.597)  has  a  system  very  much  like 
Bright's.1  Something  more  workable  seems  to  emerge 
in  John  Willis's  Art  of  Stenography  (1602).  This  is  too 
late  for  any  of  the  bad  texts  under  discussion,  but  it  is 
earlier  than  Heywood's  complaint  of  Stenography',  or  than 
any  recorded  allusion  to  'brachygraphy'  in  the  theatres.2 
Bright  does  not  use  either  term.  That  there  was  at  some 
time  reporting  of  plays  by  some  kind  of  shorthand  we 
must  take  from  Heywood.  His  If  Tou  Know  not  Me,  you^ 
Know  Nobodyy  is  not  a  good  text,  but  it  is  not  as  bad  asT 
the  memorized  bad  texts  of  Shakespeare.  Possibly  the 
method  of  Willis  was  fairly  efficient.  It  has  not,  so  far  as 
I  know,  yet  received  the  expert  examination  in  relation  to 
play-texts  which  has  been  devoted  to  that  of  Bright. 
Professor  Pollard  suggests  that  the  recovered  scene  of 
Richard  77,  as  it  appears,  badly  mislined  and  showing 
lacunae^  in  the  Qj  of  1608,  may  be  due  to  shorthand.3 
This  may  very  possibly  also  be  a  factor  in  King  Lear  (1608) 
and  Pericles  (1609).  Both  have  long  continuous  passages 
of  verse  printed  as  prose,  and  in  King  Lear  these,  although 

1  I  have  not  seen  his  New  Tears  acted  and  uttered  in  the  instant.'  It  is 
Gift  for  England.    The  Art  of  New  a  trial  and  not  a  play  that  is  in  ques- 
Brachygrapty  (1600).  The  only  copy  tion  in  Webster,  The  Devil's  Law  Case 
is  in  the  Bihtiotheque  Nationale.  (c.  1620),  iv.  2.  28,  'Doe  you  heare, 

2  Sir  G.  Buck,  Third  Vniwrsitie  of  Officers?  You  must  take  speciaU  care, 
England  (1612),  'They  which  know  it  that  you  let  in  no  Brachigraphy  men, 
[brachygraphy]  can  readily  take  a  to  take  notes/    For  Heywood,   cf. 
Sermon,  Oration,  Pky,  or  any  long  p.  147. 

speech,  as  they  are  spoke,  dictated,         3  Pollard,  Rich*  tt,  64. 
3142.1  M 


162  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Cliap.V 
fairly  adequate  textually,  are  almost  entirely  punctuated  by 
commas.  They  look  to  me  like  the  result  of  shorthand 
notes  well  taken,  but  not  properly  worked  upon  at  the 
stage  of  transcription.  Punctuation  and  metre  are  of 
course  always  the  weak  points  of  a  report.  It  is  perhaps 
relevant  that  all  these  texts  are  very  much  of  the  date  of 
Heywood's  complaint. 

There  are  fourteen  plays  for  which  we  have  parallel 
Quarto  and  Folio  texts.  They  include  at  least  two,  Romeo 
and  Juliet  and  Hamlet \  for  which  the  Quartos  had  replaced 
reported  ones.  Love's  Labour  *s  Lost  may  be  a  third.  All 
the  fourteen  Quartos  may  reasonably  claim  Professor  Pol- 
lard's epithet  'Good',  in  contradistinction  to  the  six  ad- 
mittedly 'Bad'  ones.  They  are  not  all  of  equal  merit,  and 
Heminges  and  Condell  would  probably  have  claimed  that 
^Troilus  and  Cressida  and  King  Lear,  if  not  also  Othello,  fell 
within  the  category  of  'stolne  and  surreptitious'  texts. 
There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  eleven  others  were 
not  issued  with  the  assent  of  the  company.  It  is  the  exis- 
tence of  parallel  texts  in  these  fourteen  cases  which  gives 
us  our  closest  insight  into  the  nature  of  the  copy  which 
reached  the  printers.  I  discuss  the  relations  of  the  texts 
in  chapter  ix,  so  far  as  is  possible  within  the  limits  of  brief 
disquisitions  and  without  the  opportunities  for  tabulation 
and  illustration  which  an  editing  of  the  plays  would  afford. 
Here  I  can  only  set  out  summary  conclusions.  Of  the 
fourteen  Quartos,  I  take  King  Lear  to  rest  upon  a  report, 
Richard  III  upon  a  theatrical  transcript  of  a  cut  version, 
and  Troilus  and  Cressida  and  Othello  also  upon  transcripts, 
which  may,  however,  have  been  made  tor  private  col- 
lectors, and  not  for  stage  purposes.  Othello,  but  not  Troilus 
and '  Cressida,  again  represents  a  cut  version.  Love's 
Labour  V  Lost  and  Romeo  and  Juliet  may  rest  in  the  main  on 
originals,  but  it  is  possible  that  the  former  and  probable 
that  the  latter  was  in  part  set  up  on  a  corrected  example 
of  a  bad  Quarto,  and  if  so,  an  element  of  transcription  is 
involved.  The  text  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  is  not  good  enough 
to  exclude  the  possibility  of  more  extensive  transcription. 
The  other  eight  may  all  be  from  originals.  Titus  Androni- 


Chap.V    THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  163 

cus  is  not  very  likely  to  have  been  in  Shakespeare's  hand 
throughout.  The  rest — Richard  II,  j,  2  Henry  IP \  Mid- 
summer-Nights Dreamy  Merchant  of  Venice^  Much  Ado  About 
Nothing^  Hamlet — all  might  have  been.  I  do  not  think 
that  it  is  possible  to  say  more  than  this  in  any  case.  The 
probability  is  highest  for  Hamlet^  since  the  Q  version 
shows  no  signs  of  adaptation  for  the  stage,  and  it  is  there- 
fore difficult  to  see  why  a  transcript,  at  any  rate  for 
theatrical  purposes,  should  ever  have  been  made.  Stage- 
directions  of  the  type  which  suggest  an  author's  hand 
might  of  course  be  preserved  by  a  transcriber.1  So 
too,  although  with  less  justification,  might  duplications  of 
matter,  such  as  we  find  in  Love's  Labour  *j  Lost  and  Romeo 
and  Juliet^  as  well  as  in  Midsummer-Night's  Dream.  Nor 
can  I  attach  much  importance  to  the  presence  of  abnormal 
spellings,  analogous  to  those  in  the  part  of  Sir  Thomas  More 
claimed  for  Shakespeare.  These,  too,  might  survive  a 
transcriber,  since  ex  hypothesi  they  must  have  survived 
a  compositor.  Could  we'  be  sure  that  Shakespeare's  hand 
is  in  Sir  Thomas  More,  the  recurrence  of  the  spellings  in 
some  of  the  Quartos  would  be  consistent  with  his  hand 
being  also  in  the  copy  for  these.  It  would  not  be  proof, 
for  we  could  not  in  any  event  take  it  for  granted  that  he 
had  a  monopoly  of  such  spellings.  At  the  same  time,  we 
know  that  originals,  as  well  as  transcripts,  were  used  for 
stage  'books' ;  and  there  is  no  reason  to  assume  that  tran- 
scripts'"were  made  without  need.2  Hamlet  is  apart,  but 
although  all  the  other  six  texts  in  question  bear  the 
evidence  of  intrusive  actor-names  or  of  cuts  and  other 
stage  alterations,  that  their  manuscripts  had  been  used  as 
prompt  copies,  there  is  nothing  which  could  not  be  pro- 
vided for  on  the  originals,  at  the  most  with  the  help  of  an 
additional  leaf  for  Midsummer-Night *s  Dream  and  an  ap- 
pended slip  for  Merchant  of  Venice.  Transcripts,  for  any- 
thing that  we  can  trace,  would  be  quite  superfluous. 

From  a  comparison  of  the  fourteen  Good  Quarto  texts 
with  their  Folio  counterparts  two  generalizations  emerge. 
The  first  is  that,  in  spite  of  the  apparent  wholesale  re- 

1  Cf.  pp.  118,  201.  *  Cf.  pp.  1249  151. 

M  2 


164         THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO    Chap.V 
pudiation  of  the  Quartos  by  Heminges  and  Condell, 
nearly  all  the  Folio  texts  were  in  fact  set  up  from  examples 
of  the  Quartos.  As  a  rule,  the  Quarto  used  was  the  latest 
that  had  been  issued.  The  evidence  for  this  consists  partly 
in  a  general  resemblance  of  orthographical  and  typo- 
graphical detail,  and  partly  in  the  repetition  of  obvious 
errors.    It  is  at   its   strongest  where  the  errors  have 
been  introduced  in  Quartos  later  than  the  first.    It  is 
less  conclusive  where  there  is  only  one  Quarto,  and  a 
possibility  remains  that  the  common  errors  may  derive 
from  a   common  manuscript  source.     It   has   indeed 
been  doubted  whether  Quartos  were  used  for  2  Henry 
IV  and  Troilus  and  Cressida,  although  I  think  that  in 
Troilus  and  Cressida  the  argument  from  general  resem- 
blance is  strong.  The  only  certain  exceptions  are  Othello 
and  Hamht.  The  Quarto  (1622)  of  Othello  indeed  may 
hardly  have  been  in  existence  when  the  copy  for  the  Folio 
was  prepared.  Here  the  texts  are  independent,  but  clearly 
represent  the^same  original,  with  cuts  in  the  Quarto  and 
accidental  omissions  in  the  Folio.  In  Hamlet,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  Folio  gives  a  cut  version,  in  which  theatrical 
alterations  have  been  made.  The  second  generalization  is 
that  most  and  probably  all  of  the  reprinted  texts  have 
undergone  some  modification  beyond  what  can  be  attri- 
buted to  the  compositors.  Even  where  there  is  no  general 
textual  divergence,  there  is  theatrical  alteration.  Passages 
are^cut  or  added;  stage-directions  and  speech-prefixes  are 
revised;  actor-names,  which  must  be  due  to  the  book- 
keeper, make  their  appearance.1   Invariably  there  seems 
to  be  some  elimination,  often  very  slight,  of  profanity,  as 
a  result  of  the  Act  of  Abuses  of  1606.  I  shall  discuss  this 
later  on,  and  give  reasons  for  supposing  that  its  objective 
was  theatrical  rather  than  literary.2  The  total  amount  of 
departure  from  the  Quarto  basis  varies  considerably. 
There  is  very  little  in  Romeo  and  Juliet,  Love's  Labour 's 
Lost,  Midsummer-Night's  Dream,  Merchant  of  Venice,  Much 
Ado  About  Nothing,  and  i  Henry  17,  and  in  these  it  may  be 
regarded  as  wholly  theatrical.  To  Titus  Andronicus  a  whole 

1  Cf.  p.  122.  a  Cf.  p.  238. 


Chap.V  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  165 
scene,  possibly  of  late  origin,  has  been  added.  In  Richard 
II  cuts  have  been  restored  and  the  scene  which  was  re- 
covered by  a  bungling  reporter  for  Q4  is  regularly  printed. 
But  in  this  play  textual  differences  also  begin  to  occur. 
There  is  a  reversion  to  some  readings  of  Qi  departed  from 
by  its  successors.  The  changes  in  2  Henry  IV  also  include 
the  restoration  of  cuts,  but  although  numerous,  they  are 
again  mainly  theatrical.  Textual  divergence,  however,  is 
persistent  in  Richard  III,  TroilusandCressida&ndi  KingLear, 
in  all  of  which  we  get  independent  versions  of  a  common 
original,  analogous  to  those  of  Othello.  In  these  cases  at 
least  we  must  assume  that  the  Quarto  used  as  a  basis  was 
altered  from  a  theatrical  manuscript  which  was  regarded 
as  authoritative.  It  does  not,  of  course,  follow  that  the 
alteration  was  always  complete  and  accurate.  The  question 
arises  as  to  whether  the  Quartos  used  for  the  Folio  had 
been  specially  prepared  to  provide  its  copy,  or  had  been 
originally  altered  for  use  as  prompt-copies.  Dr.  Greg 
pertinently  asks  for  more  evidence  that  printed  texts 
were  ever,  in  ordinary  circumstances,  so  used.  I  know  of 
none,  although  a  closer  acquaintance  than  mine  with  late 
Jacobean  and  Caroline  stage-history  might  perhaps  fur- 
nish it.  It  is  obvious  that  the  substitution  of  a  print  for  a 
manuscript  would  mean  a  gain  in  legibility  for  the  book- 
keeper. But  if  this  were  the  motive,  one  would  expect  an 
early  Quarto,  rather  than  a  late  one,  to  be  used.  Moreover, 
while  the  book-keeper's  own  alterations  for  revivals  could 
as  easily  be  made  on  a  print  as  on  a  manuscript,  the 
gain  in  legibility  would  largely  disappear  if  such  substan- 
tial variants  as  we  find  in  Richard  ///,  Troilus  and  Crestida, 
and  King  Lear  had  to  be  incorporated.  Other  probabilities 
are  rather  conflicting.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  difficult  to 
see  why  a  transcriber,  deliberately  preparing  a  Quarto  for 
the  press,  should  take  in  those  actor-names  which  a  com- 
positor might  very  easily  preserve  through  inadvertence, 
if  he  found  them  in  a  prompt-copy.  On  the  other,  the 
sporadic  nature  of  the  elimination  of  profanity  is  rather  in- 
explicable on  the  assumption  that  the  texts  were  primarily 
meant  for  theatrical  purposes.  I  must  leave  it  at  that. 


166  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.V 
There  is  less  to  be  said  about  the  eighteen  plays  for 
which  the  only  texts  are  in  the  Folio,  and  the  four  for 
which  the  only  alternative  is  a  bad  Quarto.  There  is  no 
obvious  reason  why  most  of  them  should  not  have  been 
set  up  from  originals.  That  of  J  Henry  VI  is  not  likely  to 
have  been  for  the  most  part  in  Shakespeare's  hand.  Both 
this  and  2,  3  Henry  VI  may  contain  some  scenes  of  com- 
paratively late  date.  There  are  probably  some  theatrical 
interpolations  in  As  Ton  Like  It  and  Cymbeline,  and  per- 
haps Tempest^  and  both  interpolations  and  cuts  in  Macbeth. 
An  original  ending  may  have  gone  from  Taming  of  the 
Shrew.  On  the  other  hand,  I  do  not  suppose  that  Timon 
of  Athens  was  ever  staged.  The  known  history  of  Winter's 
Tale  makes  it  likely  that  it  was  printed  from  a  transcript, 
and  this  is  confirmed  by  some  typographical  features.  The 
badness  of  the  text  in  Measure  for  Measure  and  All's  Well 
suggests  that  here  too  transcripts  may  have  intervened.  I 
have  already  considered  the  theories  which  ascribe  Winter's 
Tale,  Two  Gentlemen  of  'Verona,  and  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor 
to  Assembling1.  The  plausibility  is  greatest  in  the  case 
of  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona.1 

We  come  back  to  the  claim  of  Heminges  and  Condell 
and  the  Folio  publishers  to  have  given  the  plays  'according 
to  the  True  Originall  Copies'  and  'absolute  in  their 
numbers,  as  he  concerned  them'.  It  is  clear  that  this  can- 
not be  quite  literally  pressed.  It  may  reasonably  be  ad- 
mitted that  genuine  pains  were  taken,  according  to  the 
standard  of  the  times,  to  secure  reliable  texts.  The  bad 
Quartos  were  (quite  properly  disregarded.  The  labour 
spent  on  glossing  good  Quartos  from  manuscripts  must 
have  been  considerable.  We  could  wish  that  First  Quartos 
and  not  later  ones  had  been  chosen,  but  perhaps  Heminges 
and  Condell  were  not  so  familiar  as  we  are  with  the  pro- 
gressive deterioration  of  successive  reprints.  Doubtless 
the  use  of  transcripts  was  sometimes  inevitable;  we  know 
that  the  original  of  Winter's  Tale  was  lost.  Perhaps  we 
could  hardly  expect  that  interpolations  should  have  been 
removed;  still  less  that  they  should  have  been  placed  in 

*  Cf.  pp.  153, 329. 


Chap.V  THE  QUARTOS  AND  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  167 
square  brackets.  Some  hint  might  have  been  given  of  the 
occasional  presence  of  non-Shakespearean  scenes.  A  fuller 
text  of  Macbeth  would  have  been  welcome;  that  tf  Romeo 
and  Juliet  could  probably  have  been  improved.  Something 
must  have  gone  wrong  with  the  directions  for  the  treat- 
ment of  cuts,  as  a  result  of  which  Richard  II  and  King  Lear 
show  lacunae  in  the  Folio  which  are  not  in  the  correspond- 
ing Quartos.  The  greatest  lapse  is  of  course  the  complete 
failure  to  make  any  use  of  the  full  Second  Quarto  of 
Hamlet. 


CHAPTER  VI 
PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE 

[Bibliographical  Note.  Much  of  the  writing  on  Shakespeare's  publishers 
(cf.  Bibl.  Note  to  ch.  v)  deals  also  with  -his  printers.  R.  B.  McKerrow, 
An  Introduction  to  Bibliography  for  Literary  Students  (1927),  gives  an 
admirable  survey  of  Elizabethan  printing-house  methods.  Special  studies 
by  the  same  writer  are  The  Use  of  the  Galley  in  Elizabethan  Printing 
(1921,  4  Library,  ii.  97)  and  Elizabethan  Printers  and  the  Composition  of 
Reprints  (i<)2$9  4  Library,  v.  3  57).  Other  vajuable  dissertations  are  B.  A.  P. 
van  Dam  and  C,  Stoffel,  Chapters  on  English  Printing,  Prosody  and  Pro- 
nunciation (1902);  W.  W.  Greg,  The  First  Edition  of  Sen  Jonson's 
EM.O.  (1920,  4  Library,  i.  153),  An  Elizabethan  Printer  and  his  Copy 
(1923, 4  Library,  iv.  102),  Massinger's  Autograph  Corrections  (1923, 1924, 
4  Library,  iv.  207;  v.  59),  Tie  Riddle  of  Jonson's  Chronology  (1926, 
4  Library,  vi.  340),  and  P.  Simpson,  Proof-Reading  by  English  Authors  of 
the  Sixteenth  and  Seventeenth  Centuries  (1928,  Proc.  Oxford  Bib/.  Soc. 
ii.  5). 

The  special  problems  of  the  relation  of  Shakespearean  texts  to  Shake- 
spearean 'copy*  are  dealt  with  by  A.  W.  Pollard,  King  Richard  IL  A  New 
Quarto  (1916);  in  the  discussions  of  Sir  Thomas  More  (cf.  p.  499);  by 
J.  D.  Wilson  in  the  Textual  Introduction  (1921)  to  Temp.  (New  Shake- 
speare) and  Spellings  and  Misprints  in  Qz  <?/7/<0ar.  (1924,  Essays  and  Studies, 
x.  36);  and  by  W.  Blades,  Common  Typographical  Errors,  with  especial 
Reference  to  the  Text  of  Shakespeare  (1872,  Jan.  27,  Athenaum) ;  B.  A.  P. 
van  Dam,  William  Sh.:  Prosody  and  Text  (1900),  The  Text  ofSh.'s  Ham. 
(1924),  Textual  Criticism  of  Sh.'s  Plays  (1925,  English  Studies,  vi.  97) ; 
L,  Kellner,  Restoring  Sh.  (1925),  on  which  W.  W.  Greg's  review  (R.E.S. 
i.  463)  should  be  read. 

Useful  works  of  general  reference  are  E.  A.  Abbott,  A  Shn.  Grammar 
(1869);  W.  Victor,  SJL's  Pronunciation  (1906);  W.  Franz,  Sh.-Grammatik 
(3rd  ed.  1924);  H.  C.  Wyld,  History,  of  Modern  Colloquial  English  (3rd  ed. 
1925).  Elizabethan  script  is  analysed  in  the  books  on  S.TM.  and  in  that 
of  Kellner,  and  by  H.  Jenkinson,  English  Current  Writing  and  Early 
Printing  (1915,  BUI.  Soc.  Trans,  xiii.  273),  The  Later  Court  Hands  in 
England  (i<)zffc  M.  St.  C.  Byrne,  Elizabethan  Handwriting  for  Beginners 
(1925,  R.£.S.  i.  198);  R.  B.  McKerrow,  The  Capital  Letters  In  Eliza- 
bethan Handwriting^^.-],  R.E.S.  iii.  28).  W.  W.  Greg's  English  Literary 
Autographs  (1925,  1928,  in  progress)  give  examples  of  many  Elizabethan 
hands.  On  Orthography  are  A.  Lummert,  Die  Orthographic  der  Fi  der 
Shn.  Drama  (1883);  T.  Satchell,  The  Spelling  of  Fi  (1920,  June  3, 
T.L.S.);  A.  W.  Pollard,  The  Variant  Settings  in  2  Hen.  17  and 
their  Spellings  (1920,  Oct.  21,  T.L.S.),  Elizabethan  Spelling  as  a 
Literary  and  Bibliographical  Clue  (1923,  4  Library,  iv.  i);  M.  St.  C. 
Byrne,  A.  Munday's  Spelling  as  a  Literary  Clue  (1923,  4  Library, 
iv.  9),  Thomas  Churchyard's  Spelling  (1924,  4  Library,  v.  243); 


Chap.  VI        PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  169 

W.  Marschall,  Sis  Orthographic  (1927,  Anglic,  Ii.  307).  On  Elisions 
are  W.  E.  Farnham,  Colloquial  Contractions  in  Beaumont,  Fletcher, 
Malinger  and  SA.  as  a  Test  of  Authorship  (1916,  PM.L«d.  xxxi. 
326);  J.  D.  Wilson,  A  Note  on  Elisions  in  the  Faerie  Queene  (1920, 
M.L.R.  xv.  409).  M.  A.  Bayfield,  A  Study  of  Shakespeare's  Versification 
(1920),  represents  an  extreme  theory  as  to  the  treatment  of  elisions  by  the 
printers,  which  may  be  compared  with  that  equally  extreme  in  Van  Dam's 
writings.  A  correspondence  on  the  subject  is  in  T.L.S.  (1920,  Sept.-Dec.). 
On  Punctuation  are  P.  Simpson,  Si*.  Punctuation  (1911);  R-  M.  Alden, 
The  Punctuation  of  S&.'s  Printers  (1924,  PM.L-4.  xxxix.  557);  C.  C. 
Fries,  Shn.  Punctuation  (1925,  Michigan  Studies  in  Sh.y  Milton  and 
Donne);  H.  Jenkinson,  Notes  on  the  Study  of  English  Punctuation  of  the 
Sixteenth  Century  (1926,  R.E.S.  ii.  152);  J.  Isaacs,  A  Note  on  Dramatic 
Punctuation  (1926,  R.E.S.  ii.  461);  E.  M.  Simpson,  A  Note  on  Donne9 s 
Punctuation  (1928,  R.E.S.  iv.  295).  The  structure  of  Acts  and  Scenes  is 
discussed  by  T.  S.  Graves,  The  Act-Time  in  Elizabethan  Theatres  (1915, 
S.P.  xii.  103);  M.  Hunter,  Act-  and  Scene-Division  in  the  Plays  of  SL 
(1926,  R.E.S.  ii.  295);  J.  D.  Wilson,  Act-  and  Scene-Divisions  in  the  Plays 
of  Si.  (1927,  R.E.S.  Hi.  385),  They  Sleepe  all  the  Act  (1928,  R.E.S.  iv. 
191);  W.  J.  Lawrence,  Act-Intervals  in  Early  Shn.  Performances  (1928, 
R.E.S.  iv.  78) ;  W.  W.  Greg,  Act-Divisions  in  SA.  (1928,  R.E.S.  iv.  152).] 

THE  printers  of  Shakespeare's  plays,  other  than  Danter, 
Roberts,  and  the  Jaggards,  may  be  taken  to  have  been  em- 
ployed by  the  publishers  who  owned  the  copyrights.  Of 
those  concerned  with  the  first  editions,  the  most  prominent 
are  Valentine  Simmes,  who  did  Richard  //,  Richard  III, 
2  Henry  T77,  Much  Ado  About  Nothing,  and  the  bad 
Hamlet^  and  Thomas  Creede,  who  did  the  bad  2,  3 
Henry  VI,  Henry  V^  and  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor^  and  the 
good  Q2  of  Romeo  and  Juliet.  William  White  did  Love's 
Labour  *s  Lost  and  Pericles^  Peter  Short  did  i  Henry  IV^ 
George  Eld  Troilus  and  Cressida,  and  Nicholas  Okes 
Othello.  The  printers  of  three  plays  are  not  named  on  the 
title-pages,  and  can  only  be  guessed  at  on  the  doubtful 
evidence  of  the  ornaments  used.  The  bad  Hamlet  is  thus 
assigned  to  Simmes  and  King  Lear  to  Okes  or  to  George  and 
Lionel  Snowden  whose  business  he  acquired  about  1608. 
Midsummer-Night's  Dream  remains  doubtful  The  orna- 
ments suggest  Richard  Bradock  rather  than  Roberts,  but 
Edward  Allde  is  also  a  possibility.1  The  best  work  is  that 

*  Cf.p.  356.  The  ornaments  recur      a  printer's  ornaments  are  not  so  dis- 
in  the  editions  of  Marlowe's    Ed       tinctive  as  his  'devices'. 
ward  II,  printed  by  Bradock.  but 


I7o  PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE        Chap.  VI 

of  Simmes,  the  worst  that  of  Eld.  Simmes,  who  was  often 
in  trouble  for  trade  disorders,  had  been  an  apprentice  to 
Henry  Bynneman,  a  good  printer  according  to  Eliza- 
bethan standards,  which  were  not  high.  Creede  put  good 
workmanship  into  some  of  his  books,  but  his  plays  are 
nothing  to  boast  of.  One  would  gladly  know  more  of 
these  men  and  of  their  journeymen  and  apprentices,  on 
whose  equipment  of  intelligence,  experience,  sobriety, 
and  attention  much  of  the  quality  of  Shakespearean  texts 
depends.  A  practice  of  dividing  work  between  different 
printing-houses  does  not  seem  to  have  affected  the 
Quartos,  except  possibly  Qi  of  Romeo  and  Juliet l,  where 
the  character  of  the  setting-up  changes  half-way  through 
theplay.1 

The  technique  of  Elizabethan  printing  has  been  care- 
fully studied  by  Dr.  McKerrow,  who  finds  that  there  was 
little  advance  in  essentials  between  1 500  and  1 800,  and  is 
able  therefore  to  draw  upon  the  descriptions  in  Joseph 
Moxon's  Mechanick  Exercises  (1683).  The  main  points 
from  Dr.  McKerrow's  lucid  and  detailed  account  will  serve 
as  preliminary  to  a  consideration  of  printing-house  errors. 
It  is  necessary  to  distinguish  between  the  functions  of  the 
compositor,  the  pressman,  and  the  corrector.  These  may 
not,  indeed,  in  a  small  establishment,  have  been  separate 
individuals.  In  particular,  although  the  earlier  printers, 
especially  those  concerned  with  classical  texts,  employed 
competent  scholars  as  correctors,  it  may  be  suspected  that 
pamphlets  and  plays  often  had  no  supervisor  but  the 
master-printer  himself,  Irregularities  in  the  make-up  of 
a  book  may  sometimes  be  due  to  the  concurrent  employ- 
Aient  of  more  than  one  compositor  or  pressman  on  dif- 
ferent parts  of  it.2  Probably  there  was  little  preliminary 
examination  to  ensure  that  the  copy  for  the  Quartos  was 
complete  and  in  order.  It  was  handed,  with  directions  as 
to  the  size  of  paper  and  type  required,  to  the  compositor, 
who  fixed  it  in  a  stand  on  the  desk  or  table  at  which  he 
worked.  A  theory  that  it  was  dictated  to  him  is  now 

1  C£»  p.  339.  a  McKerrow  128;  cf.  pp.  141,  339. 


Chap.  VI        PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  171 

generally  abandoned.1  There  is  little  support  for  it,  be- 
yond a  tradition  first  recorded  in  the  eighteenth  century, 
that  the  practice,  which  would  have  been  both  incon- 
venient and  expensive,  was  followed  at  Basle,  and  a  few 
very  singular  'auditory'  errors,  of  which  one  or  two  sug- 
gest^ the  incorporation  of  guttural  noises  or  instructions 
coming  from  a  reader.  It  is  of  course  possible  that  dicta- 
tion may  have  occasionally  been  resorted  to  when  the  light 
was  bad.  Before  the  compositor  were  also  ranged  trays  or 
'cases',  divided  into  compartments  to  hold  the  types. 
These  were  separately  cast  on  metal  bodies,  with  the 
letters  or  other  symbols  in  relief  on  their  upper  faces. 
Moxon  shows  a  pair  of  cases,  as  used  together  in  his  time. 
The  lower  case  holds  the  small  letters,  with  the  odd  excep- 
tion of  'k',  the  punctuation  marks,  and  the  'spaces',  which 
had  no  reliefs;  and  the  sizes  of  its  main  compartments  are 
varied  in  proportion  to  the  frequency  with  which  each 
type  is  likely  to  be  needed.  The  upper  case,  sloped  at  an 
angle  above  the  lower  one,  holds  the  capitals,  the  numerals, 
and  the  more  rarely  used  symbols.  An  Elizabethan 
printer,  however,  made  considerable  use  of  italic  type,  and 
either  the  arrangement  of  his  cases  must  have  been  some- 
what ^different  to  Moxon's,  or  he  must  have  had  access  tp_ 
additional  ones  for  this  purpose.  In  his  left  hand  the 
compositor  held  the  'composing-stick',  a  short  tray  capable 
of  holding  six  or  eight  lines  of  type,  and  adjustable  to  the 
required  length  of  line.  He  memorized  a  line  or  so  of 
matter  from  the  copy  before  him,  and  with  his  right  hand 
picked  out  the  types  from  the  cases  in  due  order,  and 
transferred  them  to  the  stick,  putting  the  faces  upside- 
down,  since  the  outlines  of  the  reliefs  would  be  reversed 
in  printing-off.  Between  the  words  he  set  spaces.  If  his 
matter  did  not  fit  a  line,  he  'justified'  it  by  varying  the 
width  of  the  spaces,  but  for  this  he  had  less  need  than 
a  modern  compositor,  since  he  could  also  modify  the 
spelling.2  When  the  stick  was  full,  he  slipped  the  contents 
into  a  larger  tray  or  'galley',  which  held  just  sufficient  type 

1  McKerrow  241;  Pollard,  Rich.  II,  345  Albright  326.  *  Cf.  p.  186. 


i72  .PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE        Chap. VI 

for  a  page,  and  when  this  was  full,  he  laid  it  aside  for  the 
pressman. 

At  the  stage  of  actual  printing,  the  page-blocks  of  type 
were  removed  from  the  galleys,  and  placed  in  frames  or 
'chases',  each  of  which  took  enough  pages  to  occupy  one 
side  of  a  sheet  of  paper.  These  constituted  a  'forme*. 
There  was  an  outer  forme  for  one  side  of  the  sheet,  and 
an  inner  forme  for- the  other,  and  the  blocks  were  so  ar- 
ranged that,  when  the  sheet  was  folded,  the  pages  would 
follow  each  other  in  the  proper  order.  Plays  had  not,  as 
a  rule,  pagination  numbers,  but  a  clue  to  the  order  was 
provided  by  setting-up  the  first  word  of  each  page  as  a 
'catchword'  at  the  foot  of  that  preceding  it.  Similarly  the 
first  page  of  each  sheet  bore  a  letter  at  the  ^foot  as  a 
'signature',  and  the  signatures  ran  in  an  alphabetical  series. 
If  four  blocks  of  type  were  printed  on  each  side  of  a  sheet 
and  it  was  folded  twice  it  became  a  'quarto*  sheet  of  four 
leaves  and  eight  pages.  The  signatures  of  a  quarto  were 
generally  repeated  with  differentiating  numbers  on  the 
first  pages  of  the  second  and  third  leaves.  An  'octavo' 
sheet  was  folded  three  times  and  had  eight  leaves  and  six- 
teen pages.1  A  'folio'  sheet  was  folded  once  only  and  had 
two  leaves  and  four  pages.  But  folio  sheets  were  generally 
placed  within  each  other  in  'gatherings'  of  three  sheets, 
six  leaves  and  twelve  pages.  The  first  three  leaves  of  such 
a  gathering  had  a  common  signature  letter,  with  a  dif- 
.  ferentiating  number.  The  chase  was  packed  between  the 
blocks  of  type  with  larger  spaces  or  'furniture',  corre- 
sponding to  the  margins  of  the  pages  when  the  sheet  was 
folded,  and  firmly  'locked  up'  by  wedges  or  'quoins'.  It 
was  then  placed  on  the  bed  of  the  press.  This  slid  back- 
wards and  forwards,  and  to  its  front  was  hinged  a  frame 
or  *tympan',  holding  two  sheets  of  parchment  with  pad- 
ding between  them,  on  which  the  sheet  of  paper  to  be 
printed  was  laid.  The  type  was  inked  with  pads  or  'balls' 
of  cotton  or  hair  covered  with  leather  and  fixed  at  the  ends 
of  short  sticks.  The  ink  did  not  reach  the  small  spaces, 
but  as  it  inevitably  got  upon  the  furniture  of  the  chase,  a 

1  The  Qi  of  3  Hen.  VI*  although  classed  with  the  Quartos,  is  really  an  Octavo. 


Chap.  VI       PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  173 

second  frame  or  brisket',  hinged  in  its  turn  to  the  free 
end  of  the  tympan,  held  a  protective  sheet  of  paper,  in 
which  rectangular  spaces,  corresponding  to  the  positions 
of  the  blocks  of  type,  had  been  cut.  The  frisket  was 
turned  over  the  sheet  on  the  tympan,  and  both  frisket  and 
tympan  were  turned  over  the  chase.  The  bed  of  the  press 
was  then  slid  back  under  a  screw,  which  brought  down 
over  tympan,  frisket,  paper,  and  chase  a  heavy  wooden 
board  or  platen,  and  effected  an  impression  of  the  inked 
type  on  the  paper.  Each  sheet,  of  course,  required  two 
impressions,  one  for  each  side,  before  it  could  be  folded, 
and  had  to  be  laid  across  a  string  to  dry  between  them. 
All  the  copies  of  each  sheet  were  printed  on  one  side, 
before  the  other  side  was  taken  in  hand.  When  the  print- 
ing was  complete,  the  type  was  'distributed',  probably  by 
the  compositor,  who  put  a  few  lines  into  his  left  hand,  took 
out  a  word  or  two  at  a  time  in  his  right,  read  them,  shook 
the  types  apart,  and  dropped  them  into  their  compart- 
ments in  the  cases. 

Press-correction  must  often  have  been  a  very  casual 
business.  There  is  plenty  of  evidence  that  authors  could, 
as  now,  see  'proofs',  and  even  for  the  use,  by  the  Jaggards 
and  others,  of  4reviewes',  or  as  we  call  them  'revises'.1 
The  modern  slip-proofs,  specially  printed  in  'long'  galleys, 
had  not,  however,  come  into  use,  and  what  the  author  got 
would  be  an  ordinary  sheet,  in  which,  if  one  side  only  had 
yet  been  printed,  the  pages  would  not  be  continuous.  As 
a  rule  authors  seem  to  have  been  expected  to  visit  the 
printing-house  daily,  for  the  purpose  of  making  their  cor- 
rections; and  they  sometimes  apologize  for  errors,  on  the 
ground  that  they  could  not  do  this.  But  there  are  cases 
in  which  proofs  were  sent  out  by  messenger.  Jonson,  no 
doubt,  saw  proofs.  There  is  nothing  to  indicate  that 
Shakespeare  did,  and  in  view  of  the  number  and  character 
.of  the  errors  in  the  Quartos,  it  is  unlikely.  Nor  can  we 
suppose  that,  even  if  the  copy  was  supplied  rather  by  his 
company  than  by  himself,  any  other  member  of  it  took  the 

*  McKerrow  65,  3055  Albright  3485  P.  Simpson  in  Trans*  Oxford  Bibl. 
Soc.  ii  (19^8),  5. 


i74  PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE        Chap.  VI 

responsibility.  Whether  the  Folio  had ^ any  editor  is  a 
rather  more  complicated  question.1  Failing  an  author  to 
'oversee'  the  work,  all  rested  with  the  press-corrector,  and 
his  operations  were  often  perfunctory.  Presumably  he 
ought  to  have  read  the  proof  with  the  copy,  or  had  the 
latter  read  to  him,  as  was  the  practice  in  Moxon's  day. 
But  frequent  erroneous  corrections  show  that,  even  in 
reprints,  he  was  apt  to  proceed  by  guess-work.  Nor  does 
it  seem  that  printing-off  was  suspended  until  the  proof 
had  been  considered.  Different  examples  of  the  same  edi- 
tion of  a  play  often  exhibit  variant  readings.  Occasionally 
this  may  be  due  to  the  accidental  displacement  and  wrong 
replacement  of  type.2  But  many  variants  can  only  be  ex- 
plained on  the  assumption  that  corrections  were  made  at 
a  late  stage,  and  that  the  incorrect  sheets  already  printed 
were  not  scrapped,  but  used  indiscriminately  with  the 
•corrected  ones  when  the  book  was  put  together.  Different 
examples,  therefore,  may  contain  incorrect  and  corrected 
sheets  in  various  combinations,  and  indeed  one  side 
of  a  sheet  may  have  been  corrected  and  not  the  other. 
This  makes  the  work  of  a  modern  editor  extremely 
arduous. 

The  title-page  and  other  preliminaries,  such  as  epistles 
by  an  author  or  publisher,  were  generally  printed,  at  any 
rate  in  first  editions,  after  the  body  of  the  book.  The  *  A' 
signatures  might  be  reserved  for  them,  or  special  signa- 
tures, such  as  asterisks,  used.  The  title-page  itself  does 
not  bear  a  signature.  It  is  of  the  nature  of  an  advertise- 
ment, and  separate  copies  were  struck  off  as  hand-bills. 
Nashe  complains  that  his  Pierce  Penniless  bore  a  'tedious 
Mountebanks  Oration  to  the  Reader'.*  Title-pages  were 
probably  prepared  in  the  printing-house.  This  accounts 
for  the  frequent  laudatory  terms  and  the  elaborate  des- 
criptive titles,  which  are  not  always  -accurate.  The  Welsh 
parson  of  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  appears  as  'Syr  Hugh 
the  Welch  Knight',  and  the  Marina  of  Pericles  as  Mariana. 
The  author's  own  wording  is  more  likely  to  be  found  in 
a  head-title  at  the  beginning  of  the  text.  Advertisement 

1  Cf.  p.  198.  »  Cf.  p.  176.  3  Works  (ed.  McKeirow),  i.  153. 


Chap.  VI       PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  175 

"may  also  be  traced  in  the  mention  of  court  performances 
(Love's  Labour's  Lost,  KingLear\  and  in  the  claims,  some- 
times but  not  always  justified,  of  reprints  to  be  'corrected' 
or  'augmented'.  The  engraved  emblematic  or  other  'device* 
of  the  printer  or  publisher  or  some  ornamental  design 
often  follows  the  title.  At  the  foot  of  the  title-page  is  the 
'imprint',  which  generally  gives  the  name  of  the  printer, 
of  the  publisher  'for'  whom  the  book  was  printed,  if  dis- 
tinct from  the  printer,  and  the  publisher's  address.  Some- 
times the  printer's  name  is  omitted,  or  only  indicated  by 
initials.  And  sometimes  the  address  is  that  of  a  stationer, 
who  had  not  himself  financed  the  book,  but  was  selling  it 
on  commission.1    Imprints  may  show  variants  when  two 
stationers  were  publishing  jointly.    In  early  books  the 
imprint  was  at  the  end  of  the  text  in  a  'colophon',  but 
colophons  are  rare  in  plays.2  To  the  imprint  is  usually 
appended  the  date  of  publication.  Dr.  Greg  thinks  that 
plays  were  dated  according  to  the  calendar  year  beginning 
on  January  I,  and  not  according  to  the  year  beginning  on 
March  25,  which  was  generally  followed  both  in  private 
letters  and  in  official  documents,  including  the  Stationers' 
Register.*  A  second  'issue'  of  an  edition,  from  the  original 
stock  of  sheets,  may  have  a  new  title-page  on  an  inserted 
leaf  or  'cancel'  replacing  the  old  one,  and  a  serious  error 
in  the  text,  discovered  late,  may  be  similarly  corrected.-* 
It  is  uncertain  whether,  after  printing,  copy  was  restored 
to  the  owner,  or  destroyed  as  printing-house  waste.    If 
the  Chamberlain's  men  sent  their  'allowed'  copies  to  the 
printers,  they  must,  one  thinks,  have  recovered  them  for 
their  own  protection  in  case  of  a  revival.  Only  two  bits 
of  used  copy  are  known,  and  they  are  not  plays.  One  is 
a  fragment  of  Hooker's  Ecclesiastical  Polity  (1597),  printed 
by  John  Windet.  It  has  author's  corrections,  which  have 
been  observed  in  the  print,  although  additional  ones  seem 
afterwards  to  have  been  made.5  The  other  is  the  greater 

1  W.  W.  Greg  in  Studies,  130.  *  Cf.  pp.  349,  380,  438. 

*  McKerrow  95.  s  Bodl.  AddL  MS.  C.  1655  cf.  P. 

a  Studies,  154,  and  The  "Kiddle  of  Simpson  (Oxford  Bibl.  Soc.  Trans. 

Jonsorfs  Chronology  (1926,  4  Library*  ii.  20). 
vi.  340). 


i?6  PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  Chap.  VI 

part  of  Sir  John  Harington's  translation  (1591)  of  Ari- 
osto's  Orlando  Furioso,  printed  by  Richard  Field.1  Here 
also  the  print  shows  that  the  author  made  many  alterations 
in  proof.  There  are  some  special  directions  to  the  printer 
on  the  copy,  and  the  printer  himself  has  added  symbols 
indicating  where  fresh  pages  should  begin,  and  in  one  case 
where  a  particular  ornament  should  be  inserted.  Such 
supervision  is  likely  to  have  been  more  careful  in  Field's 
office  than  in  those  of  inferior  printers*  This  manuscript 
was  probably  returned  to  the  author^  many  of  whose 
papers  are  preserved. 

The  errors  of  printers  must  be  looked  at  both  qualita- 
tively and  quantitatively.  The  causes  of  misprints  are 
various.  Some  may  be  called  mechanical,  some  psycho- 
logical. Mechanical  errors  may  arise  at  several  stages. 
Type  may  drop  out  of  the  stick  or  an  ill-locked  chase,  or 
be  pulled  out  by  the  inking  balls,  and  be  put  back  in  the 
wrong  order,  even  if  loose  type  lying  on  the  floor  is  not 
picked  up  instead.  The  paper  on  the  frisket  may  be 
unevenly  cut  or  may  shift,  and  prevent  the  type  at  the 
ends  of  lines  from  printing.  A  space-type  may  project 
and  leave  an  impression.  A  letter  may  be  badly  cast  or 
broken,  and  its  impression  may  look  like  that  of  some  other 
letter.  Thus  a  broken  V  may  be  indistinguishable  from 
a  *c'.  But  the  most  prolific  source  of  mechanical  error  is 
what  is  known  as  'foul  case' ;  that  is,  the  presence  of  types 
in  the  wrong  compartment,  either  because  they  have 
slipped  from  an  overfull  compartment  into  that  below  it, 
or  more  usually  because  they  have  been  wrongly  distri- 
buted. Many  'literal'  misprints,  which  make  no  sense, 
may  have  this  origin.  Whether  the  very  common  but  not 
textually  important  substitution  of  a  'turned  n'  for  a  V 
or  vice  versa  is  due  to  foul  case  seems  doubtful.2 

Most  misprints,  however,  are  psychological,  and  arise 
during  composition,  which  must  be  taken  to  include  the 
subsequent  carrying  out  of  corrections.  They  may  be 

1  B.M.AddL  MS.  189205  cf.W.W.         »  McKerrow  2555  Greg  in 
Greg,  An  Elizabethan  Printer  and  his     i.  466. 
Copy  (1923,  4  Library,  iv.  zoz). 


Chap.  VI        PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  177 

further  classified  as  due  to  failures  either  of  vision,  or  of 
attention,  or  of  memory,  or  of  automatism,  or  of  judge- 
ment. The  classification  is  a  rough  one,  since  human 
faculties  are  not  isolated.  In  particular,  want  of  attention 
is  to  some  extent  a  factor  in  all  misprints,  and  may  itself 
be  the  result  either  of  stupidity  or  carelessness  or  self- 
confidence  or  haste  or  fatigue  or  drink  or  talkativeness  or 
absorption  in  alien  ideas.  Similar  misprints  may  result 
from  different  causes,  and  further  many  errors  such  as 
compositors  make  are  also  made  by  transcribers,  and  some 
even  by  authors  in  writing  down  their  thoughts,  so  that, 
especially  when  transcription  may  have  intervened,  it  is 
not  always  possible  to  be  sure  where  the  fault  lies.  The 
methods  of  transcribers  have  not  been  so  closely  investi- 
gated as  those  of  printers.  The  manuscript  of  Alleyn's 
part  of  Orlando  shows  an  example  of  careful  transcription 
for  the  theatre.1  But  one  may  perhaps  assume  that  a  tran- 
scriber would  often  be  less  of  a  trained  expert  than  a  com- 
positor, and  would  be  more  likely  to  alter  passages  which 
he  found  difficult  to  read  or  understand.2 

A  failure  of  vision  means,  of  course,  a  misreading  of  the 
copy.  Professor  Wilson  tells  us: 

It  is  a  cardinal  principle  of  critical  bibliography  that  when  any- 
thing is  wrong  with  the  text,  the  blame  should  be  laid  rather  on 
the  'copy'  than  on  the  compositor.3 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  critical  bibliography  has  any 
cardinal  principle,  other  than  the  obvious  one  that  every 
effect  has  a  cause,  and  that  the  distribution  of  ink-marks 
on  pieces  of  paper  is  no  exception  to  the  rule.  However 
that  may  be,  there  are  certainly  competent  bibliographers 
who  do  not  accept  Professor  Wilson's  principle.  Thus 
Professor  Pollard  writes  of 

the  ease  with  .which  errors  were  introduced  in  the  process  of  printing 
and  the  extreme  danger  of  assuming  that  the  faultiness  of  a  printed 
text  involves  a  corresponding  faultiness  in  the  manuscript  which  it 
follows.4 

*  Greg,  Abridgments,  271.  '  Wilson,  Temp.  xl. 

*  Cf.  pp.  440, 460.  *  Pollard,  Etch.  IT,  3*. 

3I42.X  V 


i78  PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE        Chap.  VI 

And  Dr.  Greg  says: 

It  must  now  be  abundantly  evident  that  other  causes  besides 
misreading  are  at  work  in  the  production  of  misprints;  indeed,  that 
these  other  causes  are  probably  more  widely  operative  than  errors 
of  the  eye.  Nothing  could  in  feet  be  more  misleading  than  the 
dogma  that  'Misprints  must  be  accounted  for  by  the  Handwriting'.1 

The  antithesis  of  'copy'  and  'compositor'  is,  indeed,  in 
itself  misleading;  what  we  are  concerned  with  is  the 
relation  between  the  compositor  and  his  copy.  But  the 
manuscripts  described  in  chapter  iv  are  as  a  rule 
well  written,  and  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that,  in 
Elizabethan  times  as  now,  the  best  workmen  were  set 
to  handle  the  most  difficult  material.  Moreover,  there 
are  abundant  errors  in  reprints,  where  the  complications 
of  manuscript  copy  had  not  to  be  faced.  Nevertheless 
failure  of  vision  is  a  factor  in  misprinting,  and  Pro- 
fessor Wilson  has  furnished  valuable  analyses  of  the  types 
of  'literal9  error  to  which  it  might  lead.  His  basis  is 


primarily  the  hand  of  D  in  Sir  Thomas  More,  and  this, 
whether  Shakespeare's  or  not,  is  at  any  rate  a  very  normal 
Elizabethan  hand,  not  unlike  his,  and  at  the  same  time 
such  as  any  transcriber  might  employ.  We  have  to  en- 
visage an  'English'  hand,  in  which  most  of  the  letter- 
forms  differed  from  those  of  the  'Italian'  hands  now  fol- 
lowed, which  were  then  only  just  beginning  to  come  into 
popular  use.  Some  intermixture  of  Italian  forms  there 
may  have  been,  and  some  differentiation,  probably  very  in- 
complete, of  foreign  words,  proper  names,  speech-prefixes, 
and  perhaps  stage-directions  by  Italian  script.2  Normally 
an  italic  fount  of  type  provides  a  corresponding  differentia- 
tion in  print.  The  use  of  capitals  for  the  word  'God'  in 
Merchant  of  Venice  (Qq),  ii.  2. 75,  is  exceptional.  Abnormal 
spellings  in  the  copy  might  lead  to  misunderstanding.3  Or 
again  it  might  show  contracted  forms,  although  these  do 
not  seem  very  frequent  in  theatrical  manuscripts.4  A  *p', 
with  a  loop  to  indicate  the  omission  of  letters,  is  easily 
misread,  and  a  ^  looks  much  like  an  V,  although  it 

'  JLJSJS.  1 47*.          *  Cf.  p.  113.          3  Cf.  p.  187.          4  Cf.  p.  113. 


Chap.  VI       PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  179 

stands  for  V  or  *es'.  The  commonest  confusions  in  re- 
producing an  'English*  hand  are  due  to  the  similarities 
between  V  and  'd',  between  V  and  V,  between  V  and 
V,  between  'c'  and  Y,  and  among  'm*,  'n',  *uf,  V,  V, 
V,  T  (if  undotted),  and  a  particular  form  of  V,  all  of  which 
are  or,  unless  very  carefully  formed,  may  be  constructed 
of  short  downward  strokes  or  'minims'.  It  is  clear,  how- 
ever, from  Professor  Kellner's  tables  of  misprints  that 
there  may  be  transmutation  between  almost  any  pair  of 
letters,  even  where  the  production  of  a  veritable  word 
seems  to  exclude  the  probability  of  a  cause,  such  as  'foul 
case',  alternative  to  an  error  of  vision.  Obviously,  long- 
tailed  and  long-stemmed  letters  are  only  likely  to  replace 
others  with  similar  features.  But  letters,  individually  dis- 
tinct, may  none  the  less  be  confused  when  they  appear  in 
combination.  Many  misprints  involve  more  than  one 
wrong  letter  within  the  same  word;  an  initial  error  once 
made  often  tends  to  persist  and  to  help  in  the  misinter- 
pretation of  its  context.  Beyond  this,  an  inexperienced 
reader  of  manuscript  will  get  a  word  wrong,  by  contenting 
himself  with  a  mere  general  impression  of  it,  without 
following  the  outlines  of  the  letters  at  all.  Possibly  a  tired 
or  careless  compositor  might  do  the  same,  although  it 
would  be  contrary  to  his  training.  It  is  a  blunder  which 
one  would  rather  expect  from  a  transcriber.  Failure  of 
vision  may  also  be  responsible  for  the  misdividing  of 
words.  A  word  is  split  into  two,  or  two  words  are  merged 
in  one.  Of  course  the  'hand*  of  a  manuscript  is  often  a 
contributing  factor  in  visual  errors.  A  writer  may  easily 
degrade  the  rather  elaborate  forms  of  the  'English*  letters. 
Concave  and  convex  curves  may  not  be  properly  dis- 
criminated. The  Ts  may  be  undotted.  Tops  of  letters 
which  should  be  closed  may  be  left  open.  The  minims 
may  be  superfluous  or  deficient.  The  spacing  may  be  bad. 
Linking  strokes  may  be  made  between  words,  or  omitted 
between  the  letters  of  words. 

Failures  of  attention  cause  many  errors.  The  com- 
positor, misled  perhaps  by  the  recurrence  of  the  same 
word  at  the  ends  of  neighbouring  lines  or  clauses,  starts 

N  2 


i8o  PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE        Chap.  VI 

at  the  wrong  point  in  memorizing  a  bit  of  copy,  and  leaves 
out  a  line  or  even  a  considerable  passage.  The  parallel 
texts  reveal  some  serious  mutilations  of  this  nature.1  On 
the  other  hand,  cancelled  matter,  such  as  a  duplicate  ver- 
sion, is  sometimes  inserted,  through  the  neglect  of  a  dele- 
tion mark.2  Single  words  and  letters  are  often  omitted. 
When  this  is  due  to  overlooking  a  repetition  of  them  in 
the  copy,  it  is  called  haplography.  Words  and  letters  are 
also  unduly  repeated,  and  that  is  called  dittography.  A 
whole  line  may  be  repeated,  perhaps  at  the  turn  of  a  page. 
The  order  of  letters,  words,  and  lines  may  be  dislocated, 
either  through  an  initial  error  or  through  a  careless  at- 
tempt to  correct  one. 

Some  of  the  most  subtle  and  baffling  misprints  probably 
arise  from  failures  of  memory.  The  compositor  reads  more 
of  his  copy  at  once  than  his  memory  is  able  to  carry,  and 
reproduces  it  inaccurately.  Thus,  too,  transpositions  may 
occur.  Prefixes  and  word-endings  get  altered.  Much  more 
considerable  perversions  may  take  place.  The  subcon- 
scious mind,  through  some  association,  substitutes  for  the 
right  word  an  equivalent  word,  or  even  a  contrasting  word. 
If  the  compositor's  apprehension  of  read  matter  works 
through  auditory  rather  than  visual  representations,  the 
substituted  word  may  be  one  similar,  not  in  sense,  but  in 
sound.  Such  results  are  much  like  those  which  the  loose 
memories  of  actors  and  reporters  also  yield.3  Or  again,  a 
past  word,  just  leaving  the  threshold  of  consciousness,  may 
be  echoed,  or  a  coming  word,  just  entering  it,  may  be 
anticipated.  Authors  themselves  are  very  prone  in  writing 
to  the  same  trick.  Parallel  texts  often  reveal  the  existence 
of  memory  errors;  in  the  absence  of  these  they  may  well 
remain  'cruces'.  The  human  mind  is  a  fallible  instrument. 
There  is  further  a  kind  of  muscular  memory  due  to  habit. 
The  compositor's  reaching  out  for  type  becomes  auto- 
matic. If  he  is  tired,  the  automatism  may  fail,  and  he  may 
take  a  type  from  the  wrong  compartment.  Here  is  a  third 
origin,  besides  foul  case  and  the  confusion  of  outlines,  for 
literal  misprints  and  erroneous  spacing. 

*  Cf.  pp.  440*  459>  4*7-  a  Cf.  pp.  331*  235.  3  Cf.  P-  157- 


Chap.  VI       PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  181 

Finally,  the  compositor  may  fail  in  judgement  where 
there  is,  or  where  he  thinks  there  is,  anything  in  his  copy 
which  requires  regulating.  He  may  mistake  a  parenthesis- 
bracket  for  a  deletion  mark.1  He  may  insert  a  marginal 
addition  at  the  wrong  point.  He  may  misinterpret  an 
ambiguous  contraction.  He  may  expand  an  abbreviated 
speech-prefix  incorrectly.  He  may  attach  a  speech-prefix, 
written  rather  high  or  low,  to  the  wrong  line.  He  may 
incorporate  a  speech-prefix  or  a  stage-direction  in  the  text. 
He  may,  perhaps  excusably,  retain  a  book-keeper's  note 
of  an  actor's  name  or  other  warning.2  Errors  of  judgement 
must  play  some  part  in  the  complex  phenomena  of  mis- 
lineation.  Blank  verse  is  often  wrongly  divided,  and  more- 
over verse  is  often  printed  as  prose,  and  prose,  perhaps 
less  often,  as  verse.  Again  Professor  Wilson  must  be 
quoted:3 

If  there  is  one  lesson  to  be  learnt  from  a  bibliographical  study  of 
the  Good  Quartos,  it  is  that  compositors  had  no  means  of  distin- 
guishing between  prose  and  verse  except  by  line-division  in  their 
copy. 

This  dogma,  too,  needs  some  qualification.  It  may  be 
assumed  that,  in  an  age  when  there  was  much  popular 
poetry,  and  a  compositor  was  constantly  setting-up  both 
prose  and  verse,  he  acquired  some  knowledge  of  scansion. 
Normally  he  was  called  upon  to  capitalize  the  beginnings 
of  verse  lines  and  not  those  of  prose  lines,  although  both, 
unless  Shakespearean  manuscripts  were  unlike  the  extant 
manuscripts,  began  with  minuscules  in  his  copy.  No 
doubt  he  often  followed  the  lineation  of  the  copy,  but 
certainly  he  sometimes  used  his  intelligence  to  regulate  it 
according  to  what  he  believed  to  be  the  author's  intention; 
and  either  method  might  bring  him  out.  The  confusion 
of  prose  and  verse  in  the  bad  Quartos  belongs  to  the 
reporter's  muddled  paraphrasing.  But  it  is  also  a  feature 
of  good  texts,  particularly  in  scenes  in  whidii  Shakespeare's 
rapid  transitions  between  verse  and  prose  are  frequent, 
and  which  are  sometimes  complicated  by  the  habit  which 

1  Cf.  p.  197.  *  Cf.  p.  »37.  *  Wilson,  Earn.  50. 


1 82  PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE        Chap.  VI 

Shakespeare  shares  with  many  other  writers  of  letting  his 
prose  fall  into  blank  verse  rhythms.  For  example,  Pistol's 
intrusions  of  bombastic  verse  into  prose  scenes  regularly 
appear  as  prose  in  the  Quarto  2  Henry  IV  and  the  Folio 
Henry  V  and  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor.  Shakespeare  cannot 
have  written  them  so.  There  are  many  other  instances. 
Professor  Wilson  is  apt  to  regard  the  transitions  as  evi- 
dence of  rewriting,  and  to  treat  misprinted  verse  as  due 
to  irregular  arrangement  in  a  margin.1  But  the  transitions 
themselves  are  often  of  high  literary  value,  and  give  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  they  are  not  deliberate.  It  is  diffi- 
cult not  to  attribute  ,the  misprinting  to  failures  of  the 
compositor's  judgement.  In  other  cases,  where  he  has  not 
the  same  ground  for  confusion,  a  blind  following  of  the 
copy  becomes  more  plausible.  A  marginal  insertion  might 
be  written  parallel  with  the  main  text,  and  in  half-lines  for 
lack  of  space.  There  are  such  insertions  in  extant  manu- 
scripts, and  others  .where  the  lines  are  at  full  length  and 
at  right  angles  to  the  text.2  Or  again,  as  Professor  Wilson 
has  himself  suggested,  a  writer,  near  the  end  of  passage 
or  scene,  and  also  near  the  foot  of  a  page,  might  crowd  his 
matter  and  write  two  or  three  lines  continuously.  Sir 
Thomas  More  furnishes  an  example.3  Either  of  these  arrange- 
ments might  result  in  the  setting-up  of  short  passages  of 
verse  as  prose.  But  some  other  cause  is  required  to  account 
for  the  long  passages  so  misprinted  in  the  Quarto  of  King 
Lear.  There  are  many  of  them  and  the  text  throughout 
the  play  varies  much  from  that  of  the  Folio,  I  conjecture 
that  they  are  the  notes  of  a  shorthand  reporter,  which  he 
has  taken  down  with  approximate  fidelity,  but  has  not  felt 
able,  or  has  not  troubled,  to  arrange  as  verse.  There  is 
some  confirmation  of  this  in  the  fact  that  they  are  almost 
entirely  punctuated  with  commas.  Pericles  has.  some 
similar  passages,  especially  in  Acts  iii-v,  but  they  are 
better  punctuated.  On  the  other  hand,  the  admittedly  bad 
Quartos  of  Hamlet,  Henry  V^  and  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor 
have  much  more  prose,  capitalized  and  in  irregular  lengths 
like  those  of  verse,  than  we  can  well  ascribe  to  the  com- 

1  Cf.  p.  233.  *  Cf.  p.  114.  3  Cf.  p,  510. 


Chap.  VI        PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  183 

positor.  Professor  Wilson,  who  finds  the  same  feature  in 
A  SArew,  the  Quarto  Richard  III,  and  the  Folio  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor — he  might  have  added  the  Famous 
Victories — thinks  that  the  arrangement  may  represent  the 
practice  of  some  company,  which  liked  to  have  its  parts 
written  so.1  The  Folio  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  and 
Richard  III  passages  seem  to  me  cases  of  ordinary  mis- 
judgement. The  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  irregularities  are 
trifling,  and  there  is  only  one  prose  scene  in  Richard  7/7, 
which  might  easily  upset  the  compositor.2  In  the  other 
plays  concerned  there  is  a  more  or  less  marked  tendency 
for  the  lengths  to  coincide  with  grammatical  clauses.  Per- 
haps parts  might  be  written  so,  to  facilitate  memorizing, 
although  the  scanty  prose  in  the  Orlando  part,  while 
somewhat  irregularly  written,  does  not  follow  the  clause- 
structure.  I  have  noticed  three  rather  similar  bits  of  prose 
arrangement  in  the  Folio,  which  come  at  the  bottoms  of 
pages,  and  may  have  been  deliberately  spaced  out  to  cover 
some  error  discovered  in  a  passage  of  composition  which 
had  progressed  too  far  to  make  regular  resetting  prac- 
ticable.a  Blank  verse,  even  when  printed  as  such,  is  often 
wrongly  divided.  Again  a  marginal  insertion  may  some- 
times be  responsible.4  In  the  bad  Quartos  an  initial  omis- 
sion throws  the  reporter  out,  and  the  verse  runs  wrongly 
but  plausibly,  as  verse  sometimes  will,  from  a  medial 
pause  of  one  line  to  one  in  the  next,  until  another  error 
or  the  end  of  a  speech  recovers  it.  In  the  better  texts,  a 
compositor  may  be  similarly  misled  by  an  omission,  per- 
haps due  to  a  cut.  In  some  of  the  later  plays,  such  as 
Antony  and  Cleopatra  and  Coriolanus,  it  is  noticeable  that 
mislineation  particularly  affects  the  beginnings  and  ends 
of  speeches.  And  here  it  looks  like  a  result  of  misjudge- 
ment working  upon  irregularities  in  the  copy.  In  the 
later  plays  Shakespeare  tended  more  and  more  to  end  a 
speech  and  begin  a  new  one  in  the  middle  of  a  line.  The 

1  Wilson,  Ham.  51.  I/,  ii.  65  iii.  4.  1-15.   Dr.  McKcrxow 

a  Merry  Wives  of  W.  ii.  i.  20-32,  tells  me  that  he  too  would  attribute 

121-3;  &•  3*  8 7~92 >  &f£*  Iff*  i*  4*  these  examples  of  irregularity  to  the 

101-56.  compositor  rather  than  the  'copy* 

3  Ham.  ii.  2*  211-18$  As  Tou  Like  4  Cf.  e>g.  pp.  360,  481. 


1 84  PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE        Chap.  VI 

half-lines  should  no  doubt  have  been  written  out  separ- 
ately. But  it  may  be  suspected  that  in  Shakespearean  copy 
they  were  in  fact  often  written  continuously  with  the  fore- 
going or  subsequent  lines.  The  compositor  sometimes 
followed  the  copy  and  sometimes  tried  unsuccessfully  to 
adjust  the  context.  Finally,  a  single  verse  line  is  often  split 
and  printed  in  two  half-lines.  In  the  Folio,  this  is  generally 
due  to  the  narrow  space  available  in  the  columns.  It  be- 
comes almost  normal  in  the  opening  lines  of  speeches, 
where  speech-prefixes  have  to  be  accommodated,  and  com- 
positors acquired  a  habit  of  splitting  these  lines,  even 
where  it  was  not  absolutely  necessary.  Mr.  Simpson  sug- 
gests that  other  lines  were  deliberately  split,  to  indicate  a 
substantial  pause  in  utterance.1  This  may  very  likely  be 
so.  There  is  often  a  change  of  subject  or  address,  or  a 
gesture  or  interval  for  reflection  is  conceivable.  My  treat- 
ment of  mislineation  is  necessarily  tentative.  The  whole 
subject  needs  more  investigation  than  it  has  yet  received 
or  can  receive  here* 

It  is  difficult  to  measure  the  amount  of  divergence  from 
Shakespeare's  originals  caused  by  misprinting,  even  where 
alternative  versions  are  available.  The  general  standard  of 
typographical  accuracy  was  not  high,  and  is  likely  to  have 
been  at  its  lowest  in  such  books  as  plays,  especially  if  they 
were  not  'overseen'  by  the  authors.2  The  proportion  of 
emendations  adopted  by  modern  editors  is  no  safe  guide, 
since  the  adoption  is  often  superfluous,  and  on  the  other 
hand  parallel  texts  disclose  misprints  which  no  editor 
would  suspect  and  omissions  which  no  emendation  could 
recover.  These  may  also  exist  in  the  single  texts.  For 
what  it  is  worth,  Dr.  Furness  calculated,  without  taking 
account  of  'stage-directions,  metrical  division  of  lines, 
mere  punctuation,  and  immoment  changes  of  spelling, 
that  the  Cambridge  editors  adopted  60  emendations  in 
the  3,064  lines  of  the  single  Folio  text  of  Antony  and  Cleo- 
patra.  The  Globe  edition  obelizes  about  130  lines  as  cor- 
rupt and  incapable  of  emendation,  or  as  bearing  witness 

1  Simpson,  Punctuation,  695  cf.  p.         *  Albright  356  cites  contemporary 
459.  complaints  and  apologies  by  printers. 


Chap.  VI       PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  185 

to  lacunae,  in  the  plays  and  poems  as  a  whole.1  Dr.  Greg 
thinks  that,  in  view  of  the  clearness  of  extant  theatrical 
manuscripts  and  the  probability  that  the  best  compositors 
were  put  upon  manuscript  copy,  we  may  expect  the  errors 
of  first  editions  to  have  been  'of  the  same  order  of  mag- 
nitude* as  those  appearing  in  reprints.2  The  accuracy  of 
reprints  we  can  measure,  since  each  Quarto  at  least  seems 
to  have  been  normally  set  up  from  its  immediate  pre- 
decessor, with  some  conjectural  corrections,  but  without 
further  reference  to  copy.  The  continuance  of  old  mis- 
prints is  itself  one  proof  of  this.  Professor  Pollard  has 
traced  the  process  of  degeneration  in  the  five  Quartos  of 
Richard  IL*  He  assumes,  for  the  purposes  of  the  analysis, 
the  authority  of  the  Cambridge  text,  and  lists  divergences 
from  it  by  way  of  the  omission,  transposition,  addition,  and 
substitution  of  words  and  letters,  but  not  errors  in  'line- 
arrangement,  speakers,  spelling,  and  punctuation',  or  a 
few  others  which  he  considers  'negligible'.  On  this  cal- 
culation Qq2-£  between  them  make  214  errors  which  were 
not  in  Qi.  Their  contributions  vary  from  .the  123  of  Q2 
to  the  1 8  of  Q4.  The  Folio,  reprinting  from  the  Quarto 
of  Much  Ado  About  Nothing,  introduces  122  errors.4  On 
the  other  hand,  Q2  of  Jonson's  Every  Man  Out  of  his 
Humour  is  an  almost  exact  reprint  of  Qi.5  Jonson,  how- 
ever, 'oversaw'  his  own  plays  with  extreme  care.  A  little 
direct  evidence  as  to  first  editions  id  furnished  by  some 
manuscript  alterations  made  by  Massinger  in  prints  of  his 
plays.  In  a  presentation  copy  of  The  Duke  of  Milan,  of 
which  he  does  not  seem  to  have  seen  proofs,  he  corrected 
33  errors  and  overlooked  perhaps  a  dozen  more.  In  a 
collection  of  eight  plays  he  made  between  200  and  300 
corrections,  many  of  them  merely  in  punctuation.  Some 
had  already  been  made  during  printing  in  variant  examples. 
Of  course  he  may  have  introduced  a  few  afterthoughts.6 
The  conclusions  to  be  drawn  as  to  the  purity  of  the  Shake- 
spearean texts  will  differ  for  the  pessimist  and  the  optimist. 

1  Pollard,  F.Q.  129.  «  Wilson,  Much  Ado,  154. 

*  Greg,  Abridgements,  271.  5  Greg  ia  4  Library,  i.  153. 

*  Pollard,  Rich.  II,  38.  «  Greg,  ibid.  iv.  207;  v.  59. 


186  PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE        Chap.  VI 

The  influence  of  the  printing-house  upon  the  texts  is 
not  confined  to  verbal  misprints  and  mislineation.  Pro- 
bably from  the  beginning,  certainly  in  some  of  the  re- 
printed Quartos,  and  more  markedly  in  the  Folio,  there 
is  a  small  amount  of  conjectural  emendation  intended  to 
remove  errors  or  presumed  errors  in  the  copy.  Thus  the 
later  Quartos  of  Richard  11^  while  accumulating  misprints, 
also  correct  25  out  of  69  slips  in  Qi.  There  are  some 
puzzling  changes  in  the  Henry  V  and  the  2,  3  Henry  VI 
of  1 6 1 9,  which  may  even  point  to  a  source  of  amelioration 
more  authoritative  than  conjecture.  On  the  other  hand, 
there  are  certain  subsidiary  matters,  in  which  we  have  to 
recognize  the  probability  of  considerable  departures  from 
the  originals.  The  most  important  of  these  are  ortho- 
graphy, elision,  punctuation,  and  capitalization.  Ortho- 
graphy in  the  sixteenth  century  was  in  a  state  of  transition 
and  indeed  of  chaos.  Private  letters,  even  when  written  by 
well-educated  men  and  women,  show  an  extreme  of  in- 
dividualism. Grammarians,  such  as  Richard  Mulcaster, 
put  forward  systems  on  more  or  less  scientific  lines,  but  the 
modern  standard  spelling,  as  it  gradually  established  itself 
during  the  seventeenth  century,  took  its  own  way,  without 
much  regard  for  science.1  Printed  books  display  a  uniform- 
ity much  greater  than  that  of  popular  usage,  but  within 
the  limits  of  this  there  was  still  room  for  a  great  deal  of 
variation.  Many  vowel-sounds  could  be  represented  either 
by  a  single  vowel,  a  double  vowel,  or  a  diphthong.  A  mute 
4e'  could  be  added  or  omitted  at  will.  The  *y'  was  con- 
vertible with  T  and  with  *ie\  The  variation  affected  the 
length  of  words,  and  it  has  already  been  pointed  out  that 
compositors  made  use  of  it  in  'justifying'  their  lines.2  This 
would  not  much  affect  blank  verse,  except  in  the  Folioj 
where  the  double  columns  cramped  the  space.  Individual 
compositors  had  probably  their  own  tendencies.3  It  is 

1  R.  Mulcaster,  Ekmentarie  (1582,  the  mute  V,  but  adds,  'the  Printers  in 

ed.  E.  T.  Campagnac,  1925),  chh.  xvi-  consideration  for  the  Justifying  of  the 

xxiv,  with  a  table  of  spellings  (ch.xxv).  lynes,  as  it  is  sayde  gf  the  makers  to 

*  Cf.  p.  171.    William  Salesbury,  make  vp  the  ryme,  must  be  borne 

Plain  Introduction  teaching  how  to  pro-  wythalT. 
nounce . . .  Wekh  (1567),  complains  of        3  T.  SatcheU  (1920,  June  3,  T.L.S.) 


Chap.  VI       PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  187 

clear  that  they  were  not  normally  expected  to  follow  the 
spellings  of  their  copy,  and  indeed  to  do  so  would  largely 
increase  the  time  taken  in  setting-up,  and  therefore  the 
cost.  Field's  treatment  of  Harington's  Ariosto  furnishes 
good  evidence,  since  Harington  was  in  many  respects 
particular  about  the  printing.  Of  136  variants  from  the 
modern  standard  Field  normalizes  84,  alters  but  leaves 
variant  29,  and  keeps  23.  He  adds  8  variants.1  Similarly 
some  habitual  spellings  found  in  the  manuscripts  of 
Gabriel  Harvey  do  not  appear  in  his  printed  work,2  It 
is  true  that  others  by  Anthony  Munday  and  Thomas 
Churchyard  do  sometimes  so  appear.3  Possibly  an  author, 
as  now,  could  get  his  eccentricities  respected  if  he  made 
a  point  of  it.  But  in  any  case  one  must  not  suppose  that  a 
compositor  w;as  always  on  his  guard  against  the  influence 
of  his  copy.  He  would  be  likely  enough  to  follow  it  in  an 
unusual  word,  or  one  which  obviously  represents  a  deliber- 
ate mispronunciation  by  Fluellen  or  another,  or  even  else- 
where through  inadvertence.  And  in  fact  'occasional' 
abnormal  spellings  are  common  enough,  and  may  some- 
times represent  an  author's  spellings  slipping  through. 
There  are  a  good  many  abnormal  spellings  in  the  con- 
troverted addition  to  Sir  Thomas  More,  and  some  of  these 
or  of  similar  types  recur  in  Shakespearean  Quartos. 
Professor  Wilson  gives  some  valuable  lists.4  Of  such 
things  one  writer  could  rarely  have  had  a  monopoly. 
Moreover,  a  compositor  might  himself  have  abnormal 
spellings  at  the  back  of  his  mind.  Scime  at  least  of  those 
relied  upon  by  Professor  Wilson  to  link  Shakespeare  with 
Sir  Thomas  More  are  to  be  found  in  texts  not  at  all  likely 
to  have  been  set  up  from  originals  or  even  transcripts 
of  these.5 

seems  to  show  that  two  compositors,  (Essays  and  Studies  of  the  English  As- 

with  different  tendencies,  worked  on  sociarian,  x.  36). 

Macbeth.  s  T1"is  a  fa***  or  a  **auen  (for 

«  4  Library,  iv.  no.  eleven)  is  not  6nly  in  S.T.M.  and  in 

»  McKerrow  247.  Mfr.  of  7en.,  Love's  Lab.  Lost,  and 

3  M.  St.  C.  Byrne  in  4  Library,  Ham.  (Qi),  but  also  in  Troil.  &  Ores. 
iv.  o:  v.  243.  (Qi)>  and  in  the  reported  Rom.  V  Jul. 

4  Sh.Hand,  1&  Spellings  and  Mis-  (Qi).     This    also    has    kudvsinckt, 
prints  in  the  Second  Quarto  of  Hamlet  twiacUe,    incke,    senceks,    dartenes, 


1 88  PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE        Chap.  VI 

Elisions  are  important  in  that  they  affect  the  metre, 
since  the  presence  or  absence  of  them  means  the  difference 
between  disyllabic  and  trisyllabic  feet.1  Dr.  McKerrow 
suggests  that  it  was  the  business  of  the  actors  to  know  how 
to  speak  verse,  and  that  possibly  the  author,  no  more  than 
the  compositor,  would  take  much  pains  about  the  textual 
form,  so  that  we  may  'exercise  our  own  judgement  in  its 
interpretation'.2  Shakespeare's  measure  of  confidence  in 
the  actors  is  shown  by  Hamlet's  warning  to  them  to  speak 
'trippingly  on  the  tongue',  which  can  only  mean  not  to  slur 
the  trisyllables.3  Dr.  McKerrow's  doctrine  is  a  comfort- 
able one  for  editors,  but  highly  dangerous.  It  would 
justify  Dr.  Van  Dam  in  adding  innumerable  elisions  of 
his  own  and  reducing  the  text  of  Hamlet  to  a  strictly 
decasyllabic  basis.  And  it  would  justify  Mr.  Bayfield  in 
his  constant  disregard  of  apostrophes  in  the  interests  of 
trisyllabic  rhythm.  The  methods  are  equally  perverse. 
No  doubt  Spenser's  frequent  apostrophes  show  that  he 
clung  to  the  decasyllable.4  But  dramatic  blank  verse  may 
reasonably  approach  nearer  to  the  manner  of  common 
speech  than  epic.  Shakespeare  certainly  used  both  elisions 
and  trisyllabic  feet,  and  distributed  them  with  a  growing 
delicacy  of  ear.  The  ingenuous  Mr.  Bayfield,  after  argu- 
ing at  length  that  the  elisions  were  foisted  in  by  tran- 
scribers and  printers,  arrived  at  the  afterthought  that  they 
were  probably  legitimate  but  only  indicated  a  light  pro- 
nunciation of  syllables.  For  this  he  conceived  himself  to 
find  support  in  Jonson's  use  of  apostrophes.  Jonson,  how- 
ever, knew  perfectly  well  that  an  apostrophe  normally 
meant  the  'rejecting'  of  a  vowel.5  Professor  Pollard  be- 
lieves that  elided  syllables  'should  almost  always  be  pro- 
nounced, but  so  lightly  as  not  to  interfere  with  the  rhythm 
of  the  verse'.6  I  have  something  of  the  same  feeling 
myself.  One  retains  some  consciousness  of  the  elided 

singlenest  chaples,  Uktnes,  drudg,  ttapp,  +  J.  D.  Wilson,  A  Not*  on  EMons 

bin  (been),  and  other  spellings  regarded  in  the  Faerie  Queene  (M.L.R.  xv.  409). 

by  Wilson  as 'significant*.  5  Jonson,  English  Grammar,  ii.  i; 

1  Cf.  p.  262.  cf.  Herford-Simpson,  ii.  428. 

«  McKen-ow  250.  6  Pollard,  Rich.  //,  75- 

3  Ham,  Hi.  2.  x. 


Chap.  VI       PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  189 

sound,  but  it  does  not  amount  to  a  metrical  syllable.  This 
is,  however,  a  subtlety  which  we  cannot  expect  typography 
to  recognize.  It  is  true  that,  in  the  poems  of  Spenser  and 
Donne,  in  Jonson's  plays  with  some.frequency,  and  occa- 
sionally in  the  later  Shakespearean  Quartos  and  the  Folio, 
wejjet  a  fully  printed  word  followed  by  an  apostrophe.1 
This  probably  indicates  not  an  elision,  but  merely  a  light 
pronunciation  of  what  is  still  a  syllable.  It  was  an  abnormal 
device,  which  has  not  endured.  Ordinarily  an  apostrophe 
means  an  elision.2  But  often  there  is  no  apostrophe,  and 
the  elision  is  indicated  merely  by  the  omission  of  a  vowel, 
or  by  its  transference  to  the  end  of  a  word.3  Often  there 
is  an  accompanying  consonantal  modification.4  An  elided 
word  may  be  merged  with  the  next.5  The  elision  of  pro- 
nouns yields  some  special  forms.6  The  prefixes  of  nouns 
and  verbs  may  be  dropped  without  an  apostrophe.  A 
rather  minute  examination  of  the  elisions  in  the  Qi  of 
Merchant  of  Venice  leaves  the  impression  that  in  that  text 
at  least  the  copy  was  followed  with  some  fidelity.  Its 
elisions  and  trisyllables  generally  supply  a  satisfactory 
rhythm.  One  or  two  are  clearly  wrong,  and  a  score  or  so 
of  others  may  be  doubtful.  But  even  if  these  are  misprints, 
the  proportion  is  not  a  high  one.  Other  First  Quartos, 
even  good  ones,  may  very  possibly  be  less  correct.  And 
certainly  there  is  a  tendency  in  reprints,  and  notably  in 
the  Folio,  to  alter  readings  in  the  direction  of  eliminating 
trisyllabic  feet.7  One  cannot,  therefore,  feel  much  con- 
fidence in  the  elisions  of  plays  which  are  only  preserved  in 

1  Bayfield  300;  Herford-Simpson,  trap.   This  is  also  found  in  S.T.M. 

ii.  430;  Wilson  in  M.L.R.  xv.  412.  There  is  a  discussion  in  T.L3.  (1924, 

The  Folio  has  to9  th*  (Ant.  &  Cleo.  ii.  i.  Aug.  2i-Oct.  16)  around  the  emenda- 

115  ii.  2.  25)  and  Qi  of  Oth.  i.  i.  67,  tion  of  tie  eft  for  theft  in  Love's  Lab. 

carrf  et.  Last,  iv.  3.  336. 

a  Jonson  says   'though  it  many  d  e.g.  tis,  twill,  t&wolt,  ist,  Ile,ylet 

times,    through    the    negligence    of  theyle,  week,  youle>  ant,  ont,  ons,  itk% 

writers  and  printers,  is  quite  omitted*,  yfoitk.    I  do  not  find  Im  or  Fm  in 

3  e.g.  in  Mer.  of  Ven.y  ashamde,  Mer.  of  Fen.  I  am  easily  runs  into  a 

tride,  eyde>  stolne.  trisyllabic  foot. 

e.g.  voorshipt,  *tmlockt>  drest,  crost,  i  Many  examples  are  in  Bayfield 

ie,  tone,  waft.  52  sqq. 
e.g.  thcyiernoQn^  tmnteTt<jur%  tyn- 


I9o  PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE        Chap.  VI 

the  Folio.1  On  the  other  hand,  consonantal  elision  becomes 
more  prominent  in  the  later  plays,  and  this  may  perhaps 
indicate  a  change  in  Shakespeare's  own  habit.2  The  ap- 
pearance of  elisions  in  prose,  where  they  have  no  metrical 
value,  is  rather  puzzling.  They  often  suggest  a  colloquial 
utterance,  but  are  not  used  with  any  uniformity.3  They 
may  have  come  naturally  to  a  pen  accustomed  to  use  them 
freely  in  verse. 

'Punctuation  affords  a  difficult  and  much  controverted 
problem.  That  of  Elizabethan  manuscripts  is  unprin- 
cipled and  generally  scanty.  Harington's,  in  his  transla- 
tion of  Ariosto,  is  mechanical  and  pays  little  regard  to  the 
sense.  His  printer  used  great  freedom  in  regulating  it* 
Dr.  McKerrow  is  no  doubt  right  in  thinking  that  any  rules 
which  existed  are  more  likely  to  have  been  observed  in 
the  printing-houses  than  elsewhere.5  Such  rules  had  been 
formulated  by  Aldus  Manutius  in  1561,  on  principles 
which  do  not  differ  essentially  from  modern  usage;  and 
these  may  have  introduced  the  semicolon,  the  function  of 
which  is  still  imperfectly  established  in  our  texts.6  It  is 
not  recognized  by  such  of  the  sixteenth-century  gram- 
marians as  discuss  punctuation  at  all.7  But  even  in  the 
printing-houses  there  can  have  been  little  consistency  of 
practice.  The  punctuation  of  the  Quartos  varies  very 
much,  and  in  some  it  is  extremely  bad.  The  Folio,  when 
reprinting,  makes  many  alterations,  generally  in  the  direc- 
tion of  heavier  stopping.  Clearly  different  minds  have 
been  at  work,  and  as  clearly  it  is  impossible  to  ascribe  to 
Shakespeare  much  of  what  we  find.  This  did  not  deter 

1  The  tendency  of  the  F  printer  a  Cf.  Bayfield  262  sqq. 

sometimes  leads  him  to  put  '/  where  4  4  Library,  iv.  115. 

the  metre  clearly  requires  it.  5  McKerrow  250. 

*  The  commonest  are  in  such  com-  6  Interpungendi  Ratio  in  Qrtkogra- 

binations  as  o*  tV  and  ?  th\  but  I  find  phiae  Ratio  (Venice,  1561),  525  cf.  H. 

i*  th*  rears'  our  Birth  (Wtnt.  Tale,  iv.  Jenkinson  in  R.E.S.  ii.  152. 

4.  592)  and  of  Wallace  (Wint.  Tale,  *  John  Hart,  A  Methode  or  com- 

iv.  4.  731),  where  whole  words  go.  In  fortable  beginning  for  all  unlearned 

Mer.  of  Fen.  ever  and  never  become  (1570)5    R.    Mulcaster,    Elementarie 

ere  and  nere,  but  even  is  not  elided,  (1582),  ch.  xxij  [G.  Puttenham?]  Arte 

except  once,  in  the  odd  form  in  (iii.  of  English  Poesie  (1589),  ii.  5. 


dtp.  VI        PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  191 

Professor  Wilson  from  writing  at  the  outset  of  his  editorial 
work  on  Shakespeare: 

The  old  texts  were  prompt-copy,  more  akin  to  operatic  score 
than  to  modern  literary  drama.  This  explains  the  ungrammatical 
punctuation  which,  hitherto  neglected  or  despised  by  editors,  is  now 
recognized  as  of  the  highest  dramatic  importance.  The  stops, 
brackets,  capital  letters  in  the  Folio  and  Quartos  are  in  fact  stage- 
directions,  in  shorthand.  They  tell  the  actor  when  to  pause  and 
for  how  long,  they  guide  his  intonation,  they  indicate  the  emphatic 
word,  often  enough  they  indicate  'stage-business'.1 

This  principle,  so  far  as  stops  are  concerned,  Professor 
Wilson  regarded  as  a  'discovery*  of  Mr.  Simpson's  Shake- 
spearian Punctuation  (1911).  He  departs  from  it  con- 
siderably in  his  detailed  treatment  of  some  individual 
plays.  Thus  in  Much  Ado  About  Nothing  he  discerns 
Shakespeare's  careful  punctuation  mainly  in  set  speeches, 
and  elsewhere  a  light  punctuation  'largely  supplied  by  the 
compositor,  who  tound  little  guidance  in  his  copy'.  And 
in  Love's  Labour 's  Lost  he  thinks  that  we  get,  again  with 
some  exceptions,  a  punctuation  'not  only  frequently  ab- 
surd but  greatly  overweighted  throughout,  especially  in 
the  matter  of  full-stops'.  The  'operatic  score'  has  receded 
into  the  background.  No  doubt  in  the  interval  Professor 
Wilson  has  been  influenced  by  a  new  study  of  Professor 
Pollard's  theory,  as  set  out  in  his  Shakespeare's  Fight  with 
the  Pirates  and  his  edition  of  Richard  II.  This  also  assumes 
that  Shakespeare  was  normally  a  rapid  writer,  who  did  not 
trouble  about  punctuation,  but  occasionally  became  more 
careful,  when  he  wanted  a  speech  delivered  in  a  particular 
way,  and  that  the  printers,  while  perhaps  adopting*  his 
stops  when  there  were  any,  were  obliged  to  do  the  best 
they  could  for  themselves  when  there  were  not.  As  to 
Shakespeare's  main  habit,  Professor  Pollard  may  very 
likely  be  right.  If  he  wrote  the  scene  claimed  for  him  in 
Sir  Thomas  More>  the  inadequate  punctuation  of  that  would 
be  a  confirmation.*  The  belief  in  his  occasional  interven- 

1  Temp,    xxix,    xxxviL    Professor     composed  of  dots  and  dashes,  like  a 
Wilson  disfigures  his  own  text  by  in*     feminine  novel* 
troducing  a  new  punctuation,  largely        *  Cf.  p.  510. 


1 92  PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE        Chap.  VI 

tion  to  control  the  actors  is  more  open  to  dispute.  This 
also  is  at  least  in  part  derived  from  Mr.  Simpson's  in- 
vestigation, the  object  of  which  was  to  show  that  'English 
punctuation  has  radically  changed  in  the  last  hundred 
years',  and  that,  while  modern  punctuation  attempts  to  be 
logical,  'the  earlier  system  was  mainly  rhythmical'.1  Even 
if  it  were  so,  it  would  hardly  bear  out  Professor  Wilson's 
initial  pronouncement,  since  Mr,  Simpson  was  primarily 
analysing  the  punctuation  of  the  Folio.  This  is  largely 
its  own,  and  we  surely  cannot  suppose  that  its  compositors, 
or  indeed  those  of  the  Quartos,  were  undertaking  the  task 
of  providing  shorthand  stage-directions.  Mr.  Simpson 
himself  appears  to  be  now  content  with  Professor  Pollard's 
view,  although  some  phrases  in  his  original  statement  were 
open  to  misconstruction  on  this  point.2  His  main  theory 
has  had  to  stand  the  fire  of  much  criticism,  some  of  it  ill- 
conceived.  The  term  'rhythmical'  was  not  altogether  a 
happy  one,  since  it  suggested  a  habit  of  regularly  punc- 
tuating the  end  of  every  line,  or  each  of  those  mid-line 
pauses  which  the  Elizabethans  and  some  modern  metrists 
inaccurately  call  'caesuras'.  Such  a  habit  is  apparent  in 
some  contemporary  printed  verse,  but  not  to  any  great 
extent  in  the  Shakespearean  texts.3  On  the  contrary,  stops, 
which  would  have  been  required  in  prose,  are  often 
omitted  at  line-ends;  and  this  is  intelligible,  since  an  'end- 
stopped'  line  by  itself  entails  a  pause  quite  equal  to  that  of 
a  comma.  Professor  Pollard's  'dramatic'  expresses  the 
meaning  better,  and  perhaps  'rhetorical'  is  better  still. 
When  Mr.  Simpson  calls  his  collection  of  Folio  uses  a 
'system',  he  is  putting  it  rather  high.  He  contents  himself 
with  bringing  together  positive  instances,  and  does  not 
pay  much  attention  to  negative  ones;  and  even  then  he  has 
to  acknowledge  alternative  uses.  There  are  three  ways, 
for  example,  of  treating  the  vocative,  and  five-  ways  of 
treating  the  break  in  an  uncompleted  sentence.  Neverthe- 
less, the  collection  is  an  illuminating  one.  It  is  a  more 
fundamental  criticism  that  the  antithesis  between  a  logical 
punctuation  and  a  rhetorical  punctuation  is  not  really 

1  Simpson  8.       *  Proc.  Oxford  BibL  Soc.  i.  39.        ?  Cf.  however,  p.  123. 


Chap.  VI        PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  193 

sound.  All  punctuation  has  elements  both  of  logic  and  of 
rhetoric.  It  has  its  origin  in  spoken  utterance.  Mr.  Simp- 
son points  out  that  'distinction',  which  was  an  Elizabethan 
term  for  a  'stop',  was  used  by  classical  grammarians  in  the 
sense  of  a  'pause'.1  For  the  matter  of  that,  a  'stop'  also 
means  a  'pause'.  Pauses  are  primarily  for  taking  breath  in 
speech.  On  the  other  hand,  the  terms  for  individual  stops, 
'period',  'colon',  and  'comma',  indicate  in  the  language  of 
the  grammarians,  not  pauses,  but  sentences  or  parts  of 
sentences.2  The  Elizabethans  were  conscious  of  the 
spoken  aspect  of  pronunciation.  Mr.  Simpson  quite 
rightly  quotes  Mulcaster  and  Heywood  to  show  this.3 
But  Mulcaster  and  Heywood  could  not  have  said  anything 
different,  if  they  had  had  modern  usage  before  them.  In 
spoken  utterance,  however,  the  main  pauses  for  breath 
come  at  the  syntactical  junctures  which  determine  the 
logical  structure.  Were  it  not  so,  the  utterance  would  be 
unintelligible.  And  if  a  written  language  uses  stops,  these 
naturally  follow  suit.  The  primary  dominance  of  logic, 
however,  still  leaves  a  great  deal  of  room  for  rhetorical 
variation  of  effect.  Pauses  can  be  lengthened  or  shortened, 
or  additional  ones  introduced.  Thus  we  may  indicate  the 
solemnity  of  emphasis,  the  affected  hesitation  which  awakes 
attention,  the  rapidity  of  impassioned  appeal.  Stops  can 
be  similarly  manipulated.  Modern  usage  does  not  here 
differ  essentially  from  Elizabethan  usage.  We  divide  sen- 
tences by  full-stops,  sometimes  inserting  a  conjunction 
when  the  sentences  are  logically  related.  We  link  in- 
dependent but  closely  related  clauses  within  a  sentence  by 
semicolons,  some  of  us  also  by  colons,  or  like  Professor 
Wilson  by  commas.  We  link  co-ordinate  clauses  and 
phrases  and  attach  subordinate  clauses  and  phrases  by 

1  Ibid.  i.  36.  to  the  right  and  tunable  vttering  of 

a  Fries  80  cites  Aristotle,  Cicero,  our  words  and  sentences/   Heywood, 

and  Quintilian  on  the  point.  Apology*  C3V»  «9»  that  academic  plays 

3  Mulcaster,  Elementarie,  ch.  xxi,  taught  a  student  'to  speak  well,  and 

'This  title  of  distinction  reacheth  verie  with  iudgement,  to  obserue  his  com- 

far,  bycause  it  conteineth  all  those  ma's,  colons,  &  full  poynts,  his  paren- 

characts,  and  their  vses,  which  I  call  theses,  his  breathing  spaces,  and  dis~ 

before  signifying,  but  not  sounding  tinctions'. 
which  help  verie  much,  naie  all  in  aU 


3X42.1 


194  PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE        Chap.  VI 

commas  or  semicolons,  or  without  stops.     And  these 
variations  depend,  not  only  on  the  length  of  the  sentences, 
clauses,  and  phrases,  but  also  upon  deliberate  rhetorical 
purpose.  The  divergence  of  the  Folio  from  modern  usage, 
which  Mr.  Simpson's  examples  illustrate,  is  in  detail 
rather  than  in  principle.  Much  of  it  is  merely  a  matter  of 
the  use  of  symbols.  A  colon  is  put  where  we  should 
put  a  full-stop,   or   where  we  should   put  a  comma. 
The  difference  is  in  the  value  attached  to  the  colon, 
not  in  the  length  of  pause  intended.     A   comma  is 
often  put  where  we  should  put  a  semicolon.  Clearly  the 
use  of  the  semicolon  was  not  yet  fully  appreciated.    Mr. 
Simpson  has  a  list  of  independent  clauses  linked  by 
commas,  but  the  actual  length  of  pause  required  in  utter- 
ance varies  considerably.1    A  more  free  use  of  semicolons 
would  have  made  a  finer  rhetorical  differentiation  prac- 
ticable. The  colon  is  independently  used,  not  only  as  now 
to  introduce  a  quotation,  but  also,  indifferently  with  the 
interrogation  mark,  to  supply  the  want  of  an  exclamation 
mark.   There  are  differences  to  be  observed  also  in  the 
distribution  of  commas.  Professor  Pollard  says  that  the 
Elizabethan  usage  was  nearer  to  normal  speech  than  ours, 
which  'balances  comma  by  comma  with  a  logic  intolerable 
in  talk'.   I  do  not  altogether  agree.   Modern  usage  has 
some  superfluous  commas,  marking  off  vocatives  and  im- 
peratives and  very  short  clauses  and  phrases.    But  often, 
if  a  pause  is  required  for  intelligibility  at  the  end  of  such  a 
clause  or  phrase,  one  is  required  at  the  beginning  also; 
and  the  Folio  habit  of  omitting  an  initial  comma  in  such 
cases  does  not  make  for  good  utterance.  What,  however, 
strikes  one  most  about  the  Folio  is  the  frequent  excess  of 
its  commas.    They  come,  for  example,  according  to  Mr. 
Simpson,  at  the  end  of  a  composite  subject,  or  again  be- 
tween an  accusative  and  a  dative.   Frequently,  and  in  a 
most  irritating  way,  they  supplement  a  conjunction  in 
linking  nouns,   verbs,   and  adjectives,   which   have    a 
common  position  in  a  sentence.   But  surely,  as  so  used, 
they  are  logical  or  grammatical,  rather  than  rhetorical, 

1  Simpson  if. 


Chap.  VI        PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  195 

devices.  You  do  not  want  a  rhetorical  pause  in  such  lines 
as—1 

The  Cowslips  tall,  her  pensioners  bee, 
or    " 

I  could  haue  giuen  my  Vnkles  Grace,  a  flout, 
or — 

Your  brother,  and  his  louer  haue  embrac'd; 
or — 

Th'  extrauagant,  and  erring  Spirit,  hyes 

This  last  line  has  two  commas,  one  superfluous  and  the 
other  clearly  wrong.  And  indeed  the  constant  intrusion 
of  a  comma  directly  between  subject  and  predicate  is  one 
of  the  most  disturbing  features  in  the  Folio  punctuation.2 
Here,  and  in  commas  between. object  and  complement, 
and  in  similar  intrusions  of  colons  and  even  full-stops,  Mr. 
Simpson  often  discerns  a  rhetorical  purpose.  It  may  some- 
times be  there.  There  are  parallel  cases  in  the  works  of 
Donne,  who  seems  to  have  punctuated  more  carefully  than 
most  of  his  contemporaries.3  And  there  is  no  reason  why 
the  Elizabethans  should  not  have  handled  the  possibilities 
inherent  in  the  system  of  punctuation  rather  more  freely 
than  we  do.  This  would  not  constitute  it  a  different 
system.  But  I  cannot  believe  that  any  intention  of  Shake- 
speare is  represented  by  the  second  stop  in  the  line  from 
Hamlet  quoted  above  or  by 

To  each  of  you,  one  faire  and  vertuous  Mistris; 
Fall  when  loue  please,  marry  to  each  but  one.4 

Curiously  enough,  the  Restoration  found  the  punctuation 
bequeathed  to  it  inadequate  in  just  what  Mr.  Simpson 
regards  as  its  distinguishing  characteristic.  In  1665  John 
Evelyn  proposed  that  the  Royal  Society  should  invent 
some  'new  Periods  and  Accents,  to  assist,  inspirit,  and 
modifie  the  Pronunciation  of  Sentences,  &  to  stand  as 
markes  beforehand  how  the  voice  &  tone  is  to  be  governed ; 
as  in  reciting  of  Playes,  reading  of  Verses,  &c.  for  the 

1  Mid.  N.  Dr.  ii.  x.  105  'Rich.  Ill,     Sonnets. 

ii.  4.  245  Meets,  for  Meas.  i.  4.  405  *  Grierson,  Poems  of  Donne,  n. 
Ham.  i.  i .  154.  ocxii;  E.  M.  Simpson  in  R.E.S.  iv.  295. 

2  It  recurs  in  the  badly  printed         4  All's  WeU,  ii.  3.  63. 


o  2 


196  PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE        Chap.  VI 

varying  the  tone  of  the  vo^ce,  and  affections,  &c\x  For- 
tunately nothing  came  of  it.  In  one  respect,  indeed,  we 
are  ourselves  more  rhetorical  than  the  Elizabethans.  They 
made  little  use  of  the  dash;  an  unpleasing  device  which, 
as  in  this  sentence,  I  try  to  avoid.  Where  there  are  pos- 
sible rhetorical  stops  in  the  Shakespearean  texts,  the 
general  character  of  the  punctuation  must  make  us  hesi- 
tate before  ascribing  them  with  any  confidence  to  Shake- 
speare himself.  There  are  obvious  exceptions  in  such 
passages  as  Pistol's  gabble  while  he  eats  the  leek  or  the 
pace  of  Margaret's  tongue  in  Much  Ado  About  Nothing.2 
Here  the  compositor  may  have  preserved  an  intention  of 
the  author,  as  he  sporadically  preserved  dialectic  pronun- 
ciation. Clearly  it  is  so  with  Quince's  prologue.3 

The  parenthesis  is  on  rather  a  different  footing.  It  is 
not  properly  a  punctuation  mark,  and  primarily  it  encloses 
something  which  breaks  the  run  of  the  sentence;  an  aside, 
a  qualification,  an  afterthought.  Here  it  may  be  regarded 
as  rhetorical,  and  a  change  of  intonation  may  be  appro* 
priate.4  But  the  use  of  it  gets  much  extension  in  the  Shake- 
spearean texts,  and  brackets  merely  replace  commas,  to 
enclose  vocatives,  exclamations,  short  appositions,  ad- 
jectival or  adverbial  phrases,  and  the  like.  They  also  in- 
troduce quotations.  Professor  Wilson  thinks  that  in  Q2 
of  Hamlet  they  generally  imply  'some  kind  of  mental  or 
spiritual  disturbance'.  There  are  only  thirteen  examples, 
and  most  of  them  are  quite  colourless.5  One  may  there- 
fore suspect  a  misapplied  subtlety,  when  Professor  Wilson 
quotes — 

My  fathers  spirit  (in  armes)  all  is  not  well, 
and  adds  that  'the  brackets  simply  vibrate  with  the  tones 

1  Cf.  J.  Isaacs  in  R£.S.  ii.  462.  so  not  fullie  coincident  to  the  sentence, 

2  Hen.  79  v.  i.  49;  Much  Ado,  iii.  which  it  breaketh,  and  in  leading 
4.  93 .  waxneth  vs,  that  the  words  inclosed  by 

3  Mid.  N.  Dr.  v.  i.  119,  'He  hath  them,  ar  to  be  pronounced  with  a 
rid  his  prologue  like  a  rough  colt;  he  lower  &  quikker  voice,  then  the  words 
knows  not  the  stop'.  either  before  or  after  them.' 

*  Mulcaster,  Elementorie,  ch.  xxi,  *  In  i.  5. 170-8  the  brackets  excep- 

'Parenthesis  is  expressed  by  two  half  tionally  include  a  divagation  of  nine 

circles,  which  in  writing  enclose  some  lines, 
perfit  branch,  as  not  mere  impertinent, 


Chap.  VI       PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  197 

of  mystery  and  amazement'.  And  when  he  finds  'a  wild 
hysterical  chuckle'  in  Qi's — 

(My  tables)  meet  it  is  I  set  it  down, 

it  is  we  who  chuckle  with  the  reporter.1  The  frequency  of 
brackets  varies.  There  are  only  thirteen  pairs  in  Merchant 
of  Venice  and  forty-four  in  Midsummer-Night's  Dream.  In 
both  cases  the  Folio,  reprinting,  follows  the  Quartos, 
which  looks  as  if  the  printers  were  normally  guided  by 
their  copy  in  this  respect.  On  the  other  hand,  in  i  Henry 
IV)  the  Folio  doubles  the  seventeen  examples  of  the 
Quarto.  Brackets  are  exceptionally  common  in  Winters 
Tale\  there  are  even  brackets  within  brackets.  They  seem 
to  have  become  mere  flourishes,  and  may  confirm  the  con- 
jecture that  Winter's  Tale  was  printed  from  a  calligraphic 
transcript.  The  Quarto  of  Othello  omits  two  lines,  which 
in  the  Folio  are  bracketed.2  Did  a  transcriber  take  the 
brackets  for  deletion-marks?  Inverted  commas  occa- 
sionally seem  to  call  attention  to  gnomic  passages.  Pro- 
bably they  came  from  copy.  They  are  occasionally  to  be 
found  in  printed  books  of  non-dramatic  poetry,  as  well 
as  in  plays.3  I  do  not  see  why  the  reporter  could  not  have 
introduced  them  into  the  Qi  of  Ham  Jet.4  We  may  assume 
that  the  printers  capitalized  the  beginnings  of  sentences, 
including  some  which  follow  a  colon  or  semicolon,  and  of 
verse-lines,  when  they  did  not  happen  to  be  short  of 
capital  type.5  Individual  words,  mainly  but  not  wholly 
nouns,  also  receive  capitals.  Very  likely  some  of  these  are 
due  to  the  author.  The  use  is  comparatively  sparing  in 
the  Quartos,  being  commonest  in  tides  and  designations, 
names  of  classes  of  mankind,  and  personifications.  The 
Folio  considerably  extends  it,  often  capitalizing  the  names 
of  animals,  plants,  and  other  natural  objects,  and  of  craft 
products.  But  there  is  no  uniformity  anywhere.  Of  course 
many  of  the  words  are  important,  but  it  is  rather  an 

1  Wilson,  Ham.  9.  3  They   are    common,    e.  g.    in 

a  Oth.  i.  2.  655  3.  63.    If  Qi  of  Sir  John  Dme^NosceTeipsum  (1599). 

K.  Lear  is  reported,  its  omission  of  4  Wilson,  Ham.  n. 

i.  i.  50-1  cannot  be  similarly  ex-  *  Cf.p.  370. 

plained. 


198  PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE        Chap.  VI 

exaggeration  to  speak  of  'emphasis-capitals*.  A  'slight 
exaltation  of  tone*  is  often  fanciful,  even  apart  from 
conventions  like  'Lord',  'Madam',  and  'Sir'.1  The  frequent 
capitalization  of  C  may  be  due  to  a  scribal  distaste  for  the 
insignificant  minuscule,  and  that  of  M  to  the  resemblance 
of  the  majuscule  and  minuscule  forms.2  Italics  are  used, 
both  in  the  Quartos  and  the  Folio,  for  proper  names, 
but  not  quite  systematically,  and  for  speech-prefixes. 
The  Folio  regularly  uses  them  for  stage-directions 
throughout.3  This  is  also  the  commonest  practice  in  the 
Quartos.  But  sometimes  the  body  of  a  stage-direction  is 
in  roman  type  and  only  the  names  or  some  of  them  in 
italics,  and  sometimes  this  arrangement  is  reversed.  The 
variant  methods  may  appear  side  by  side  in  the  same 
Quarto.  It  is  notably  so  in  Qi  of  Merchant  of  Venice. 
Broadly  these  uses  of  italics  answer  to  those  of  Italian 
script  in  theatrical  manuscripts,  but  the  printers  may  well 
have  done  some  regularization.4  There  is  an  exceptional 
appearance  of  italics  for  ordinary  dialogue  both  in  Qi  and 
Q2  of  Romeo  and  Juliet.  They  are  also  used  normally  for 
songs,  letters,  inscriptions,  and  the  like.  These  were  read 
from  scrolls  on  the  stage,  but  the  scrolls  were  presumably 
extracted,  like  parts,  from  the  originals.  In  the  textsr  it  is 
not  always  clear  by  whom  matter  is  read.  It  may  merely 
have  some  such  heading  as  *A  letter1,  without  a  speech- 
prefix.  And  if  it  is  inserted  in  a  speech,  and  a  comment 
by  the  speaker  follows,  there  is  sometimes  a  second  speech- 
prefix  for  the  comment.  This  is  so  in  Q2  of  Hamlet ^  which 
is  not  likely  to  rest  on  a  stage-copy.  There  is  therefore  no 
reason  to  think  with  Professor  Wilson  that  elsewhere  the 
same  arrangement  shows  that  a  scroll  formed  part  of  the 
copy.5 

It  has  been  held  that  the  Folio  received,  from  Heminges 

1  Simpson  1035  Pollard,  St.  F.  93,  other  exceptions.  ' 

Rich.  IT,  30,  71.  4  Jonson's  MS.  Mas*  of  Queens, 

a  Cf.  McKerrow  in  R.E.S.  iii.  29.  Dr.  Greg  tells  me,  like  a  non-dramatic 

3  Some  stage-directions  in  TV^u.  MS.  noted  by  McKerrow  251,  has 

2,  iv.  i,  v.  i,  !T«w  Gent,  offer,  ii.  5, 6, 7,  words  underlined,  as  if  for  italicization. 

andMfr^J^w«o/JP.i.i,ii.  1,2 have  *  Ham.  ii.  2.  1255  iv.  6.  325  7.  505 

the  names  in  roman  type;  there  may  be  cf.  Wilson,  Me r.  of  Ven.  96. 


Chap.  VI       PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  199 

and  Condell,  or  Ben  Jonson,  or  Edward  Blount,  or  an- 
other, some  sort  of  editing  beyond  what  a  printing-house 
would  naturally  supply.  The  evidence  is  not  very  strong. 
The  process  of  sophistication,  already  noticed  in  the  ortho- 
graphy and  in  the  smoothing  out  of  metre  with  the  help 
of  elisions,  is  perhaps  also  traceable  here  and  there  in  the 
diction.  There  may  be  some  tendency  to  eliminate 
dialectic,  colloquial,  or  merely  unusual  words  and  archaic 
inflexions.  The  use  of  'a*  for  'he',  'of '  or  'on'  seems  to 
meet  with  particular  disapproval.  Even  puns  are  mis- 
understood or  disliked.  Trifling  grammatical  solecisms  in 
moods  and  cases  are  removed.  Adverbial  adjectives  give 
way  to  adverbs.  There  are  substitutions  of  'thou'  for  'you' 
and  of  'mine'  for  'my'  and  of  'my'  for  'mine*  before  a 
vowel  or  consonant  respectively.  I  have  noticed  about  a 
score  of  possible  examples  in  Merchant  of  Venice?  There 
are  others  in  Professor  Pollard's  lists  of  variants  for 
Richard  II,  in  Professor  Wilson's  for  Much  Ado  About 
Nothing^  and  in  Dr.  Van  Dam's  for  Hamlet,  although  here 
a  transcript  has  doubtless  intervened.  It  is  not  at  all  clear 
that  we  need  look  beyond  the  compositors.  Indeed,  the 
interchanges,  especially  between  'my'  and  'mine',  are  not 
always  in  the  same  direction.  Nor  is  it  clear  that  the 
sophistication  is  deliberate;  it  may  be  merely  due  to  sub- 
conscious misprinting.2  One  way  or  another,  those  of  our 
texts  which  rest  on  the  Folio  alone  are  probably  somewhat 
farther  from  Shakespeare's  originals  than  the  others.  In 
the  Quartos,  except  partially  for  Othello,  and  for  some 
typographical  devices  in  Pericles  and  part  of  the  bad  edi- 
tion of  Romeo  and  Juliet^  the  plays  are  not  divided  by  acts 
and  scenes.  This  is  the  commonest  arrangement  in  prints 

1  Mer.  of  Vert.  i.  2. 7  small  <  meane  hand  <  cosin,  hands,  iv.  i.  22  exacts* t 

(pun),  18  then  be  <  then  to  be,  25  <  exacts,  77  fretted  <  fretten,  123  soale 

whom  <  who,  47  afraid  <  afeard,  55  to  <  soule  (pun),  14*  endlesse  <  curelesse, 

be  <  be,  69  should  <  shall,  i.  3.  123  258  should  <  doe,  290  whom  <  who, 

should  <  can,  152  it  pleaseth  <  pleas-  334  thee  <  you,  379  Gods  sake  <  God- 

eth,  ii.  9.  7  thou  <  you,  iii.  i.  32  sake,  v.  i.  209  mine  honour  <  my 

fledg'd  <  flidge  (a  good  dialect  word),  honour,  233  my  bedfellow  <  mine 

iii.  2. 93  makes  <  maketh,  160  nothing  bedfellow. 
<  something  (pun),  iii.  4.  50  cosins         a  Cf.  p.  180. 


200  PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE        Chap.  VI 

of  plays  belonging  to  the  public  theatres,1  The  Folio 
introduces  such  divisions,  but  very  incompletely.  Each 
play  begins  with  the  heading  Actus  primus,  Scena  prima,  or 
in  three  cases  Actus  primus  alone.  The  typography  sug- 
gests that  headings,  with  their  enclosing  rules,  were  set-up 
for  blocks  of  plays,  and  transferred  successively  from  one 
to  another  of  them.2  Seventeen  plays  are  also  fully  divided 
by  acts  and  scenes  throughout,  two  imperfectly  by  acts 
and  scenes,  eleven  by  acts  alone,  while  six  remain 
undivided.  These  variations  cannot  be  correlated  at 
all  exactly,  either  with  the  chronological  order  of  the 
plays,  or  with  Professor  Pollard's  theory  that  special 
care  was  spent  upon  those  disinterred  for  the  Folio.  It  is 
perhaps  noteworthy  that  the  four  latest  written  plays  are 
all  fully  divided,  and  that  of  the  eight  earlier  plays  of  which 
revivals  during  1610-23  are  traceable,  five  are  fully  and 
three  partially  divided.3  It  is  therefore  at  least  possible 
that,  while  the  division  was  imperfectly  carried  out,  the 
information  for  it  came  from  the  theatre.  Professor  Wil- 
son's conjecture  that  the  King's  men  came  to  pay  more 
attention  to  act-intervals  after  they  occupied  the  Black- 
friars  in  1609  is  an  attractive  one,4  The  curious  stage- 
direction  at  the  end  of  act  iii  of  Midsummer-Night's  Dream 
— 'They  sleepe  all  the  Act' — is  an  addition  of  the  Folio. 
Here  'Act'  means  the  act-interval.  Mr.  Lawrence's  argu- 
ment that  the  parody,  if  it  is  one,  of  the  device  in  Histrio- 
mastix  iii.  299  shows  the  act-interval  to  be  of  old  standing  is 
inconclusive,  since  Histriomastix  itself  may  have  received 
an  addition  before  the  print  of  i6io.5  -The  Malcontent 
shows  that  long  act-intervals  were  not  in  use  at  the  Globe 
in  1 6c>4.6  It  does  not  follow  that  there  were  no  breaks  at 
all.  Shakespeare  himself  uses  the  terms  'act'  and  'scene' 

1  EUx.  Stage,  iii.  1995  W.  W.  Greg     Wilson  (iv.  191). 

in  R.E£.  iv.  152.  6  Ind.  89,  on  the  additions  made  'to 

2  £.  £.  Wfiloughby  in  R.E.S.  iv.  entertain  a  little  more  time,  and  to 
323.  abridge  the  not  received  custom  of 

3  Cf.  5.   The  plays  are  J,  2  Hen.  music  in  our  theatre*.  But  'abridge' 
17,  Much  Ado,  Jtd.   Goes.,   Ham.,  is  not  found  in  the  sense  of  'bridge 
Twelfth  Nigte,  Oth.,  Macb.  over*,  and  only  means  'shorten';  cf. 

4  RJ2S.  iii.  385.  Elix*  Stage,  iii.  125,  132. 

5  Lawrence  in  R.E.S.  iv.  78$  cf. 


Chap.  VI        PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  201 

rather  indifferently,  and  with  no  clear  technical  signi- 
ficance. On  the  other  hand,  the  evidence  of  the  plots  and 
the  extant  manuscripts  seems  to  show  that  some  account 
was  taken  both  of  act  and  scene  divisions  in  the  public 
theatres  generally,  and  there  is  no  obvious  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  the  Globe  was  an  exception.1  A  scene  division, 
no  doubt,  need  not  have  implied  more  than  a  momentary 
pause  in  the  continuity  of  a  performance.  Whatever  their 
origin,  the  Folio  divisions  can  hardly  be  correct,  or  at  least 
Shakespeare's,  in  j  Henry  71,  Comedy  of  Errors,  Taming  of 
the  Shrew,  King  John,  and  Henry  7.  Modern  editors  have 
frequently  altered  the  scene  divisions  unnecessarily,  in- 
troducing a  new  scene  where  there  is  no  change  of  time  or 
locality,  or  even  a  real  clearance  of  the  stage,  but  only  a 
shift  of  action  from  the  outer  stage  to  the  alcove  or  gallery, 
or  a  fresh  'excursion'  in  a  battle.2  The  Folio  supplies  lists 
of 'actors',  that  is,  of  Dramatis  Personae,  for  six  plays,  with 
indications  of  'The  Scene'  for  two  of  them.  The  object 
may  be  to  fill  up  blank  pages  or  half-pages.  Professor 
Pollard  traces  editing  in  another  feature  of  some  of  the 
special  Folio  plays.  There  is,  he  thinks,  a  'substitution  of 
literary  for  theatrical  stage-directions,  i.e.  of  notes  helping 
-  a  reader  to  understand  the  play  for  memoranda  reminding 
the  prompter  and  actors  of  what  had  to  be  done'.3  I  once 
accepted  this  view,  but  have  now  come  to  regard  it  as 
extremely  dubious.4  Certainly  the  directions  or  the  Tem- 
pest, Henry  Fill,  Timon  of  Athens,  and  Coriolanus  are  un- 
usually elaborate;  but  they  are  not  more  so,  although  they 
are  more  elegant,  than  those  of  2,  3  Henry  FI\  and  these 
cannot  be  editorial,  since  they  are  substantially  reproduced, 
perhaps  through  the  medium  of  a  plot,  in  the  reported 
Contention.  Of  course  the  descriptive  directions  in  some 
other  'reported'  texts  are  not  comparable.5  I  believe  the 
stage-directions  throughout  the  plays  to  be  substantially 
Shakespeare's.  They  were  no  doubt  modified  by  the  addi- 
tions, eliminations,  and  alterations  of  the  book-keeper,  and 

1  Cf,  pp.  118,  124.  4  Elix.  Stage,  iii.  196. 

2  M.  Hunter  in  R.E.S.  ii.  296.  5  Cf.  p.  157. 
J  SL  F.Q.  125. 


202  PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE        Chap.  VI 

to  this  point  I  shall  have  to  return.1  But  in  origin  they 
seem  to  me  to  be  the  suggestive  notes  to  the  management 
of  an  author  familiar  with  theatrical  conditions,  rather 
than  theauthoritative  instructions  of  the  management  to  the 
prompter  and  actors.  Looking  at  the  matter  chrono- 
logically, I  conceive  Shakespeare  to  have  begun  by  writing 
stage-directions  rather  fully.  When  he  settled  down  with 
the  Chamberlain's  men,  and  thereafter  during  the  greater 
part  of  his  career,  they  became  comparatively  slight.  He 
was  on  the  spot  and  was  able  to  take  his  share  in  planning 
and  rehearsing  productions.  In  the  late  plays  named  above 
they  are  full  again.  It  is  an  ingenious  and  probable  sug- 
gestion by  Professor  Wilson  that  these  plays  may  have 
been  written  in  the  country,  for  production  during  his 
absence.2  The  Tempest  and  Henry  VIII^  in  particular,  are 
full  of  spectacular  episodes,  for  which  the  dialogue  by  it- 
self would  be  an  inadequate  guide.  Descriptive  touches 
are  natural  here.  But  throughout  the  plays  the  general 
character  of  the  directions  is  the  same.  They  show  fami- 
liarity with  the  technical  resources  of  the  theatre.  And  they 
contain  notes  for  incidental  action  on  the  stage.  But  they 
also  include  others  for  apparel  and  the  use  of  properties, 
for  the  grouping  of  entries,  even  for  the  bearing  of  the 
actors.  Sometimes  they  indicate  the  relationship  of  char- 
acters; sometimes  the  scope  of  a  scene,  and  very  rarely  its 
locality.3  Thus  they  deal  with  points  many  of  which  had  to 
be  considered  and  settled  in  the  tiring-house,  long  before 
the  opening  of  performances.  The  suggestive  element  is 
especially  noteworthy  in  directions  which  leave  for  later 
decision  such  details  as  the  number  of  supernumeraries  to 
be  employed  in  a  scene.  These  are  precisely  the  features 
which  we  find  in  the  directions  written  by  the  main  hands 
in  extant  play-manuscripts,  and  which  are  freely  altered  by 
the  book-keepers  there.-*  I  think  they  are  to  be  discerned 

»  Cf.p.236.  3  2Hen.IP(Q)>iv.i.i,  'Enter... 

«  Wilson,  Temp.  80:  CorioL  fees.  I  within  the  fonest  of  Gaultree'j  Hen.  V 

do  not  suppose  Timon  to  have  been  (F),iii.  i.  i,  'Scaling  Ladders  at  Har- 

actuafly  produced,  and  presumably  flew*, 

many  of  the  Hen.  7IU  stage-directions  +  Cf  .  p.  1 1 8. 
are  not  Shakespeare's. 


Chap.  VI        PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE  203 

in  the  four  late  plays,  as  well  as  in  the  earlier  ones.1  It  is 
not  inconsistent  with  what  we  may  suspect  of  Shake- 
speare's temperament  that  many  of  his  directions  are 
written  in  an  off-hand  manner.  The  characters  are  desig- 
nated, now  by  individual,  now  by  generic  names.2  When 
a  group  which  has  been  once  seen,  returns,  it  often  gets 
a  summary  description.  Here  again  the  extant  manu- 
scripts provide  parallels,  as  well  as  for  the  frequent  omis- 
sion of  entries  and  exits.  The  book-keeper  should  have 
supplied  the  former,  if  not  the  latter.3  Sometimes  the 
Folio  and  even  the  reprinted  Quartos  do,  but  only,  one 
supposes,  by  inference  from  the  text.  I  have  an  impression 
that  Shakespeare  sometimes  wrote  the  initial  direction  to 
a  scene  before  he  had  thought  out  the  dialogue,  and  some- 
times, as  a  result,  left  the  name  of  a  character  standing 
there  for  whom,  after  all,  he  had  provided  no  speech.4 
There  is  a  casual  aspect,  also,  about  the  speech-prefixes. 
They  are  often  much  abbreviated,  and  not  consistently  in 
the  same  form.  Lords  and  servants  may  be  differentiated 
only  by  a  V,  V,  '3'.  Dr.  McKerrow  thinks  that  the 

1  e.g.  CorioL  i.  i.  227  'EnteraMes-  theatrical  structure  i.  i.  47   'Showts 

senger  hastily',  231  'with  other  Sena-  within',  i.  4. 13  'on  the  Walks',  i.  8.  i 

tours*,  i.  3.  i  'Volumnia  and  Virgilia,  'at  seueral  doores',  v.  5.  i    'passing 

mother  and  wife  to  Marcius*,  i.  4.  i  x>uer  the  Stage' j  Temp.  ii.  i.  i  'Enter 

"as  before  the  City  Corialus',  30  'Mar-  ...  and  others',  iii.  3.  i  'Enter . . .  &c*, 

cius  Cursing',  i.  6.  i  'Cominius  as  it  17  'seuerall  strange  shapes . . .  inuiting 

were  in  retire',  i.  9.  i   'Martius,  with  the  King,  &c.  to  eate*,  53    'with  a 

hisArmeinaScarfe',ii.  2.  i  'Officers,  quient  deuice',  iv.   i.  139    'certaine 

to  lay  Cushions,  as  it  were,  in  the  Reapers   (properly   habited)'— not   a 

Capitoll',  41    'Enter  the  Patricians,  description,  but  a  warning  to  have 

and  the  Tribunes  of  the  People,  Lie-  'wardrobe  wit'— 194   'Ariell,  loaden 

tors  before  them:  Coriolanus,  Mene-  with  glistering  appareU,  &c.';^and  for 

nius,  Cominius  the  Consul:  Scicinius  theatrical  structure,  i.  z.  63  'A  con- 

and  Brutus  take  their  places  by  them-  fused  noyse  within',  iii.  2.  48  'Enter 

selues:  Coriolanus  stands',  iii.  i.  i  'all  Ariell  inuisible'  (a  stage  convention; 

the  Gentry',  181    'a  rabble  of  Pie-  cf.  £#*.   Stage,  iii.  108),  iii.  3.  17 

beians',  186   'They  all  bustle  about  'Prosper  on  the  top  (inuisible)'— cf. 

Coriolanus',  iv.  i .  i  'the  young  Nobi-  J  Hen.  VI  for  the  only  parallel  to  'the 

lity  of  Rome',  iv.  4.  i  'Coriolanus  in  top'— -v.  i.  171   'Here  Prospero  dis- 

meane     Apparrell,     Disguisd,     and  couers  Ferdinand  and  Miranda'.  But 

muffled',  iv.  6.  20    'three  or  foure  v.  i.  255   'Enter  Ariell,  driuing  in 

Citizens',  128  'a  Troope  of  Citizens*,  Caliban  . .  .*  inverts  theatrical  usage, 
v.  2.  i  'to  the  Watch  or  Guard',  v.  3.         *  Cf.  pp.  119,  232. 
182   'Holds  her  by  the  hand  silent',         »  Cf.  p.  120. 
v.  6.  9  '3  or  4  Conspirators';  and  for         4  Cf.  p.  231. 


204  PLAYS  IN  THE  PRINTING-HOUSE        Chap.  VI 

compositors  treated  the  prefixes  in  their  copy  freely,  tending 
to  unify  the  use  of  a  form  throughout  a  page.1  Sometimes  a 
prefix  has  got  attached  to  the  wrong  line.  If  Shakespeare, 
like  the  writer  of  the  addition  to  Sir  Thomas  More>  wrote 
the  text  first,  and  added  the  prefixes  afterwards,  they  may 
well  have  occasionally,  in  spite  of  speech-rules,  been 
placed  too  high  or  too  low.2 

1  4  Library,  ii.  102.  a  Cf.  p.  510. 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY 

Bibliographical  Note.  I  have  gone  over  much  of  the  ground  of  this  chapter 
in  The  Disintegration  of  Shakespeare  (1924,  British  Academy)  and  The 
Unrest  in  Shakespearean  Studies  (1927,  Nineteenth  Century  and  After,  ci. 
255).  Dramatic  collaboration  is  discussed  in  E.  N.  S.  Thompson,  Eliza- 
bethan Dramatic  Collaboration  (1908,  E.S.  d.  30);  0.  L.  Hatcher 
Fletchers  Habits  of  Dramatic  Collaboration  (1910,  Anglia,  xxxiii.  219); 
F.  E.  Pierce,  The  Collaboration  ofDekker  and  Ford  (1912,  Anglia,  xzzvi! 
141,  289);  L.  Wann,  The  Collaboration  of  Beaumont,  Fletcher  and  Mas- 
singer  (1916,  Wisconsin  Studies,  147);  W.  J.  Lawrence,  Early  Dramatic 
Collaboration:  a  Theory  (1927,  f  re-restoration  Studies,  340);  C.  Sisson, 
Keep  the  Widow  Waking  (1927,  4  Library,  viii.  39,  233);  E.  H.  C.  Oli- 
phant,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  (1927),  Collaboration  in  Eliz.  Drama  ( 1020 
PhiL  Q.  viii).  ^  V  V 

My  Disintegration  lecture  summarizes  the  earlier  theories  as  to  elements 
of  unauthenticity  in  the  Shakespearean  canon.  For  later  material  I  must 
refer  to  the  Bit/.  Notes  to  cL  ix,  and  notably  to  J.  D.  Wilson's  views  as 
set  out  in  the  New  Shakespeare.  More  general  treatments  are  in  E.  H.  C. 
Oliphant,  Shakespeare's  Plays:  An  Examination  (1908-9,  M.L.R.  iii.  337; 
iv.  190,  342)  and  W.  Keller,  Sh.  als  UberarbeiterJremderDramen  (1922, 
J.  Iviii.  68).  Many,  but  not  all,  of  J.  M.  Robertson's  studies  are  in  his 
Sh.  and  Chapman  (1917),  The  Shakespeare  Canon  (1922-30),  Introduction 
to  the  Study  of  the  Shakespeare  Canon  (1924).  Some  special  points  dealt 
with  in  this  chapter  are  studied  in  F.  H.  Hoffmann,  Uber  die  Beteuerungen 
in  Shs  Dramen  (1894);  J.  M.  Manly,  Cuts  and  Insertions  in  Sh.'s  Plays 
(1917,  S.P.  riv.  123);  A.  Gw,  Actors' Names  in  Basic  Shn.  Texts  (1925, 
PM.L.A.  3d.  530);  W.  J.  Lawrence,  SJL's  Lost  Characters  (1928,  Sh.'s 
Workshop,  $<j),ANev>  Shakespearean  Test  (ibid.  48);  R.  C.  Bald,  Macbeth 
and  the  'Shorf  Plays  (1928,  R.E.S.  iv.  429).] 

THE  canon  of  Shakespeare's  plays  rests  primarily  on  the 
authority  of  title-pages.  Thirty-six  are  included  in  the 
First  Folio.  Quartos,  good  and  bad,  of  fifteen  of  these 
also  bear  his  name;  it  is  not  on  those  of  Titus  Andronicus, 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  or. Henry  7.  Quartos  also  ascribe  to  him 
Pericles  and  a  share  in  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  which  are  not  in 
the  Folio.  The  registration  entries  of  2  Henry  77  and  King 
Lear,  which  name^him,  probably  themselves  rest  on  the 
title-pages.  There  is  confirmation  for  some  of  the  plays  in 
contemporary  references.  The  most  important  is  the  list 
given  by  Francis  Meres  in  his  Palladis  Tamia  of  1598. 


206  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap.  VII 

This,  on  the  assumption  that  Love  Labours  Won  is  an 
alternative  title  for  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  contains  twelve 
plays,  but  not  Henry  7I>  which  must  be  early  work.1  John 
Weever  in  1599  speaks  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  and  either 
Richard  II  or  Richard  Hits  Shakespeare's,  Gabriel  Harvey 
in  or  before  1601  of  Hamlet ',  Ben  Jonson  in  1619  and  later 
of  Julius  Caesar  and  Winter's  Tale*  The  Revels  Accounts 
of  1604-5  ass*gn  to  him  Measure  for  Measure,  Comedy  of 
Errors,  and  Merchant  of  Venice^  but  leave  the  Moor  of 
Venice^  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  Henry  V,  and  Love's 
Labour 's  Lost  anonymous.3  This  evidence  is  of  a  kind 
which  is  ordinarily  accepted  as  determining  the  author- 
ship of  early  literature.  It  is  better  than  anything  which 
we  have  for  many  of  Shakespeare's  dramatic  contem- 
poraries. The  Spanish  Tragedy,  for  example,  is  only  at- 
tributed to  Kyd  on  the  basis  of  a  casual  reference  by  Nashe, 
and  of  Marlowe's  authorship  of-  Tamburlaine  there  is  no 
direct  contemporary  record  at  all.4  But  of  course  title- 
pages  are  capable  of  rebuttal,  on  sufficient  external  or 
internal  grounds  shown.  Publishers  are  not  always  well- 
informed  or  even  honest.  Shakespeare's  name  is  also  in 
the  registration  entry  and  on  the  title-page  of  A  Torkshire 
Tragedy  and  on  those  of  The  London  Prodigal 'and  Jaggard's 
reprint  of  Sir  John  Oldcastle,  and  the  initials  'W.  S.'  are  on 
those  of  Locrine  (1595),  Thomas  Lord  Cromwell  (1602), 
and  The  Puritan  (1607);  and  these  six  plays,  with  Pericles^ 
were  added  as  his  to  the  Third  Folio  in  1664.  All  s*x  can 
be  safely  rejected  from  the  canon.  But  the  reason  for  the 
appearance  of  the  name  may  not  be  the  same  in  all  cases. 
It  is  conceivable  that  Shakespeare  or  another  W.  S.  'over- 
saw' the  printing  of  the  old  court  play  Locrine.  Three  of 
the  other  plays  belonged  to  his  company,  and  the  pub- 
lishers may  have  been  ignorant  of  their  authorship.  The 
same  charitable  supposition  will  not  cover  The  Puritan  or 
Sir  John  Oldcastle,  a  distinct  play  from  Henry  IP \  which  also 
sometimes  went  under  that  name.  The  *W.  S.'  is  simi- 
larly found  on  the  Q2  of  the  Troublesome  Reign,  Shake- 

1  App.  B,  no.  xiii.  s  App.  D. 

*  App.  B,  nos.  xvii,  xix,  xxii.  4  Eliz.  Stage,  iii.  396,  421. 


Chap.  VII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY  207 

speare's  source-play  for  King  John.  This  never  got  into 
a  Folio.  Other  misascriptions  are  due  to  Commonwealth 
and  Restoration  booksellers.1  The  only  bit  of  external 
evidence  against  the  authority  of  the  First  Folio  itself  is 
the  statement  of  Edward  Ravenscroft  in  1687  ^at  Shake- 
speare only  touched  up  Titus  Andronicus?  But  the  inclu- 
sion of  an  individual  play  under  the  comprehensive  title 
of  that  collection  must  not  be  pressed  too  far.  Heminges 
and  Condell  and  their  publishers  were  not  attempting  a 
modern  'critical'  edition,  and  no  doubt  their  methods  were 
imperfect.  It  is  quite  possible  that  they  saw  no  harm  in 
including  without  comment  a  play  which  Shakespeare  had 
only  revised,  one  or  two  for  which  he  had  a  collaborator, 
and  one  to  which  he  had  contributed  little,  but  which  had 
long  been  linked  to  other  'parts'  of  an  historical  series.  It 
follows,  of  course,  that  alien  matter  may  be  present  in  other 
plays  than  Titus  Andronicus^  Taming  of  the  Shrew>  Henry 
VIII)  and  i  Henry  VI.  Contrariwise  the  possibility  that 
Shakespeare  may  have  had  a  hand  in  some  uncollected 
plays  cannot  be  wholly  disregarded.  Nevertheless  the 
Folio  must  be  regarded  as  the  chief  authority  for  the  main 
range  of  Shakespeare's  dramatic  responsibility,  and  it  re- 
quires deference  as  coming  from  men  who  were  in  the 
best  position  to  know  the  facts.  A  desire  to  do  justice  to 
a  dead  fellow'  and  some  care  taken  in  the  work  are  ap- 
parent enough  in  the  epistles.  Mr.  J.  M.  Robertson,  who 
attempts  to  impugn  the  external  evidence  for  the  canon, 
tells  us  that  the  players  ascribed  to  Shakespeare  work  that 
was  not  his  'in  order  to  maintain  their  hold  on  the  copy- 
rights',3 They  had  no  publishing  copyrights,  but  were 

1  Cf.  ch.  x.  every  piece  in  their  repertory  in  which 
*  Cf.  p.  316,  and  App,  C,  no.  xiv.  they  had  proprietary  rights  was  for 
3  Canon  n.  xvii,  *We  may  pardon  Heminge  and  Condell  a  way  of  main- 
the  players  for  obstinately  specifying  taining  their  own  interest.'  Mr.  Ro- 
as  Shakespeare's  works— in  order  to  bertson  protests  (Canon  in.  3)  that  he 
maintain  their  hold  on  the  copyrights  has  not  charged  Heminges  and  Con- 
about  which  they  are  so  obviously  and  dell  with  'commercial  fraud*.  It  may 
so  naturally  anxious— a  collection  of  be  so$  I  do  not  know  what  degree  of 
plays  as  to  which  they  knew  and  we  misrepresentation  in  one's  own  finan- 
know  that  much  of  the  writing  is  not  cial  interest  amounts  to  commercial 
Shakespeare's  at  all';  cf.  Introd.  66,  70,  fraud. 
76,  80-1,  'To  father  on  Shakespeare 


208  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap.  VII 

protected  against  stationers  before  1623,  and  certainly 
an  author's  name  on  a  print  could  not  help  them.  If 
Mr.  Robertson  means  stage-rights,  his  case  might  be 
better.1  But  the  corroborative  testimony  of  Meres  can- 
not be  disposed  of  by  the  repeated  assertion  that  his 
list  was  'derived  from  the  theatre'.2  We  do  not  know 
whence  he  derived  it.  He  was  a  literary  clergyman, 
resident  in  London,  and  evidently  interested  in  writers  for 
the  stage,  about  whom  he  tells  us  other  things  not  recorded 
elsewhere.  Many  sources  of  information  may  have  been 
open  to  him.  His  style  tends  to  parallelism,  and  he 
balances  six  comedies  of  Shakespeare  against  six  tragedies. 
He  does  not  mention  Henry  VI.  It  would  have  upset  the 
balance.  But  Meres  did  not  complete  his  university  career 
until  1593,  and  Henry  VI  may  not  have  been  played  in 
London  between  his  arrival  and  the  compilation  of  his  list. 
In  so  far  as  the  authority  of  the  Folio  is  departed  from, 
it  must,  except  for  the  isolated  case  of  Titu$  Andronicus,  be 
on  grounds  of  internal  and  not  external  evidence.  It  has 
often  been  departed  from.  A  chronicle  of  the  earlier 
scepticisms  need  not  be  set  forth  here.s  They  rested  in 
part  on  an  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  order  in  which  the 
plays  were  written,  which  made  the  variations  of  style 
puzzling,  and  they  were  largely  modified  by  the  chrono- 
logical investigations  of  Malone.  Some  oracular  utter- 
ances of  Coleridge  bridge  a  gap.  Modern  essays  at  dis- 
integrating the  canon  start  from  Fleay,  whose  own  theories 
were  ingenious  if  kaleidoscopic,  but  who  called  attention 
to  many  features  of  the  texts,  both  stylistic  and  biblio- 
graphical, which  are  still  receiving  study.  It  is  at  present 
held  by  ihany  students,  and  with  varying  degrees  of  stress 
on  the  different  issues,  that  the  Quarto  and  Folio  texts- 
have  often  been  altered  or  abridged  by  other  hands  than 
Shakespeare's;  that  he  revised  his  plays,  with  the  result 
that  variant  texts,  and  even  a  single  text,  may  contain 
fragments  of  different  recensions;  that  he  also  revised  the 

1  Cf.  pp.  136,  149.  »  Cf.  The  Disintegration  of  Shake- 

*  Introd.  19,  59,  62,  65;  Canon  n.     speare. 

21,  139. 


Chap.  VII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY  209. 

work  both  of  predecessors  and  contemporaries,  whose 
writing  remains  entangled  with  his  in  the  texts.  There  are 
certain  practices  of  Elizabethan  dramaturgy,  which  have 
helped  to  create  a  prepossession  in  favour  of  such  theories. 
Collaboration  and  revision  are  both  verae  causae.  Col- 
laboration, rarely  found  in  other  forms  of  contemporary 
literature,  was  very  common  in  drama.  This  can  be  estab- 
lished on  records  alone,  without  regard  to  the  findings  of 
conjecture.  It  begins  with  the  courtly  and  legal  amateurs 
of  the  'sixties.  Gorboduc>  Tancred  and  Osmund,  Jocastay 
and  later  Locrine  and  The  Misfortunes  of  Arthur  had  all 
from  two  to  seven  collaborators.1  It  is  traceable  among  the 
University  wits.  The  Looking  Glass  bears  the  names  of 
Greene  and  Lodge;  Dido  those  of  Marlowe  and  Nashe. 
Greene,  in  1592,  addresses  a  'young  Juvenal,  that  biting 
satirist,  that  lastly  with  me  together  writ  a  Comedy'.2 
Probably  we  find  the  practice  at  its  maximum  in  Hen- 
slowe's  accounts  for  the  Admiral's  and  Worcester's  men 
during  1597-1604,  Fees  were  paid  for  about  130  new 
plays,  and  of  these  well  over  half  were  written  in  collabora- 
tion by  from  two  to  as  many  as  five  hands.  Of  the  more 
important  contributors  Webster  and  Wilson  never  stood 
alone,  Chettle  only  in  12  plays  out  of  44,  Dekker  in  9 
out  of  41.  An  exception  is  Chapman,  all  of  whose  five 
plays  were  unaided,  but  for  the  use  of  a  plot  which  Jonson 
had  abandoned.3  Jonson  himself  wrote  one  play  alone  and 
shared  in  three  others.  We  may  speculate  as  to  the  reasons 
for  a  method  which  cannot  have  made  for  good  workman- 
ship, and  we  hardly  get  beyond  speculation.  Many  of  the 
plays  were  ephemeral  productions.  Plays  did  not  have 
long  runs.  One  which  did  not  draw  was  quickly  discarded, 
and  a  new  one  called  for,  often  at  short  notice.  Even  for 
the  court,  Munday  had  to  bind  himself  to  furnish  a  play 
within  a  fortnight.4  The  playwrights  themselves  were 
needy,  and  presumably  small  but  frequent  returns  suited 

1  Cf.  p.  536  and  Etix.  Stage,  iii.  320,  364.   The  ascriptions  in  Etiz.  Stage, 

348,  456,  514.  ch.  xxiii,  differ  in  some  details}  the 

*  Ibid.  iii.  451.  facts  are  not  always  dear. 

3  Cf.  Greg's  tables  in  Henslowe,  ii.  *  Henslowe,  i.  93. 

3X42.1  p 


210  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap.  VII 

their  purses.  We  have  little  information  as  to  the  men,  other 
than  Shakespeare  and  Jonson,  who  wrote  for  the  Cham- 
berlain's company.   Probably  they  were  the  same  who 
wrote  for  Henslowe.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that, 
as  a  rule,  a  playwright,  who  was  not  himself  an  actor,  was 
anything  but  a  free  lance.  The  special  arrangements,  by 
which  Henslowe  tied  the  impecunious  Chettle  and  Porter 
to  write  for  the  Admiral's  only,  carry  this  implication.1 
Jonson  wrote  two  unaided  plays  for  the  Chamberlain's, 
but  for  his  Sejanus  of  1603  he  had  a  collaborator,  whose 
work,  with  a  compliment,  he  replaced  by  his  own,  before 
it  went  to  press.2  There  is  no  recorded  parallel  to  this 
proceeding,  which  must  be  set  down  to  Jonson 's  conscious 
pride  of  artistry.   In  the  seventeenth  century  we  get  the 
familiar  and  enduring  partnership   of  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher,  although  certainly  Fletcher  and  probably  Beau- 
mont also  wrote  independently.  The  contemporary  testi- 
mony of  Sir  Aston  Cokain  informs  us  that  Massinger 
also  had  a  hand  in  some  of  the  plays  printed  as  Beaumont 
and  Fletcher's  in  1647,  Chapman,  Jonson,  and  Marston 
joined  in  Eastward  Ho,  and  there  were  various  shifting 
combinations,  in  which  Dekker,  Middleton,  Rowley,  and 
Webster  are  conspicuous.    In  Eastward  Ho  and  in  the 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher  plays,  the  literary  difficulties  of 
collaboration  are  fairly  well  surmounted.  Much  has  been 
written  as  to  the  way  in  which  labour  was  divided  in  joint 
plays.  It  is  not  necessary  to  assume  that  the  same  method 
was  always  followed.  Presumably  an  outline  was  agreed 
upon  and  some  sort  of  &  scenario  prepared.  Thereafter  the 
actual  writing  might  be  distributed  according  to  the  inter- 
weaving of  a  plot  and  sub-plot,  of  which  one  might  be 
tragic  and  the  other  comic.  Or  each  author  might  follow 
up  particular  characters,  which  would  come  to  much  the 
same  thing.    Or  one  author  might  start  all  the  main 
themes,  and  the  rest  carry  them  forward  on  his  lines. 
There  are  certainly  cases  of  a  rough-and-ready  partition  by 

1  Eliz.  Stage,  i,  374.  Sheppard's  age  makes  it  impossible 

2  Ibid.  iii.  368.    It  has  been  shown      for  him  to  have  been  the  collaborator. 
(cf.  App.  B,  no.  xrii)  that  Samuel 


Chap.  VII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY  211 

acts.  Daborne  gave  Tourneur  an  act  of  his  Arraignment 
of  London  to  write,  and  Dekker  contributed  the  first  act 
of  Keep  the  Widow  Waking  and  one  speech  in  the  last  act.1 
There  is  no  evidence  at  all  for  anything  of  the  nature  of 
a  line-by-line  collaboration,  which  certainly  would  not 
have  made  for  expedition. 

Clearly  there  need  be  no  reason  for  surprise  if  Shake- 
speare occasionally  had  a  collaborator.  The  problem  of 
revision  is  more  complicated.  Plays  which  had  been  laid 
aside  were  often  revived.  A  stock  favourite  was  called  a 
'get-penny'.2  I  have  collected  the  notices  of  Shakespearean 
revivals.3  The  Admiral's  men  bought  old  plays  in  order 
to  reproduce  them.4  When  the  Chapel  resumed  their 
activities  in  1 600,  it  was  complained  that  'the  vmbrae,  or 
ghosts  of  some  three  or  foure  playes,  departed  a  dozen 
yeeres  since,  haue  bin  seen  walking  on  your  stage  heere'.5 
And  revival  was  sometimes  accompanied  by  revision. 
Even  with  a  familiar  play,  it  was  a  fairly  obvious  device  to 
increase  the  attraction.  And  sometimes  a  forgotten  play 
was  passed  off  as  new.6  It  may  be  that  higher  entrance 
fees  could  be  charged  for  a  play  called  new.  Revision  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  regarded  as  very  exalted  dramatic 
work.  Dekker  speaks  of  'a  Cobler  of  Poetrie  called  a  play- 
patcher',  and  in  Jonson's  Poetaster  Demetrius  Fannius, 
who  is  probably  Dekker  himself,  is  *a  dresser  of  plaies 
about  the  towne,  here'.7  It  is  difficult  to  estimate  the 
extent  of  the  practice.  Again,  it  will  be  best  to  begin  with 
recorded  cases.  Conceivably  three  or  four  plays  marked 
'ne*  in  Henslowe's  accounts  for  1594-7  may  have 'been 
revived  and  not  strictly  new;  the  significance  of  *ne'  is 
not  quite  clear.  During  1597-1603  the  Admiral's  men 
appear  to  have  revived  at  least  23  old  plays.  The  latter 

1  Henslauoe  Papers,  72$  C.  Sisson  in  London  and  the  Countrey  Carbonadoed 
4  Library*  viii.  243.  and  Quartered  (1632),  'The  pkyeis 

2  Ettx.  Stage,  i.  372.  are  as  crafty  with  an  old  pky,  as  bauds 

3  App.  D.  with  old  facesj  the  one  puts  on  a  new 

4  Etiz.  Stage,  ii.  167,  179.  fresh  colour,  the  other  a  new  face  and 

5  Ibid.  ii.  43.  name.' 

6  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  The  False  7  Dekker,  News  from  Hell  (1606, 
One  (c.  1620),  prol.,  'New  Titles  war-  Works,  ii.  146)$  Jonson,  Poetaster,  iii. 
rant  not  a  Pky  for  new'j  D.  Lupton,  4,  367. 

p  2 


2i2  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap.  VII 

must  have  been  popular,  since  1 1  of  them  have  come 
down  to  us  in  print,  a  quite  disproportionate  number,  in 
view  of  the  oblivion  which  has  overtaken  most  of  the  300 
or  so  plays  named  by  Henslowe.  If  one  may  judge  by  the 
fees  paid  to  the  poets,  only  four  of  the  revivals  entailed  sub- 
stantial revision  and  two  others  small  alterations.  There 
were  also  small' alterations  to  five  recent  plays,  and  new 
prologues  and  epilogues  were  written  for  three  revivals.1 
In  several  cases  the  plays  concerned  were  being  prepared 
for  court,  and  alterations  may  have  been  due  to  the  special 
scrutiny  by  the  Revels  officers  required  for  court  per- 
formances. The  total  amount  of  revision  for  the  Admiral's 
men  during  a  period  of  six  years  was  therefore  very  slight. 
As  to  its  nature  we  are  not  wholly  in  the  dark.  Three  of 
the  four  substantially  altered  plays  are  extant.  Of  Old 
Fortunatus  we  have  only  the  later  text;  it  seems  probable 
that  the  original  play  was  in  two  parts  and  that  the  revision 
compressed  them  into  one.  Both  Dr.  Faustus  and  The 
Spanish  Tragedy  survive  in  duplicate  versions.  The  earliest 
(1604)  of  Dr.  Faustus  is  corrupt,  and  the  textual  history 
of  the  play  is  therefore  difficult  to  reconstruct.  But  it  is 
at  least  possible  to  trace,  both  here  and  in  a  later  version 
of  1616,  the  progressive  introduction  of  farcical  prose 
scenes  alien  to  Marlowe's  design,2  The  Spanish  Tragedy  is 
in,  somewhat  similar  case.  Some  alterations  in  the  version 
of  1 602  amount  to  the  insertion  of  new  scenes  into  an 
otherwise  unaltered  text.  It  is,  however,  most  improbable 
that  these  particular  scenes  represent  the  revision  for  the 
Admiral's  men.3  There  are  parallels  elsewhere  both  to  the 
compression  of  Fortunatus  and  to  the  expansion  of  Faustus 
and  The  Spanish  Tragedy  by  added  passages.  Heywood, 

1  Henslowe,  i.  94, 99, 114-16, 124-  unspecified  play  (5^.)$  Jonson  altered 

5,  143,  149, 153, 164-8, 171-3.  Dek-  the  old  Spanish  Tragedy  (£2  and  part 

ker  altered  the  old  Tessa's  Melancholy  of  £io)j  Bird  and  Rowley  altered  the 

(£4),  Fortunatus  (£9),  and  Phaethon  old  Dr.  Faustus  (£4)5  Middleton  did 

(£2),  and  did  a  prologue  and  epilogue  a  prologue  and  epilogue  for   Friar 

for  Pontius  Pilate  (10* .);  Chettle  altered  Bacon  (5;.). 

the  old  Fayvode  (£i)  and  recent  j,  2  *  Cf  .  P.   Simpson  in  Essays  and 

Robin  Hood  (to/,  each),  j,  2  Cardinal  Studies^  vii  (1921),  143. 

Wolsey(£i  each),  and  Friar  Rush  (ios.),  *  Cf.  p.  148  and  W.  W.  Greg  in 

and  did  a  prologue  and  epilogue  for  an  M.S.R.  reprint,  xviii. 


Chap.  VII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY  213 

at  some  uncertain  date,  constructed  an  Escapes  of  Jufiter 
out  of  scenes  taken  from  his  series  of  Ages.1  An  allusion 
in  Satiromastix  suggests  a  possible  counter-device  of 
expanding  one  play  into  two.2  Histriomastix  appears  to 
have  been  rehandled  by  the  insertion  of  passages,  some 
long  and  some  short.3  Chapman's  Bussy  D*Ambois  was 
touched  up,  at  some  unknown  date  before  1641,  possibly 
to  improve  its  effectiveness  on  the  stage.4  Two  plays  of 
the  King's  men,  The  Malcontent  and  Mucedorus,  received 
additional  scenes,  the  former  to  lengthen  the  performance, 
the  latter  for  a  revival  at  court.  The  original  conclusion 
of  Jonson's  Every  Man  Out  of  his  Humour  was  altered 
because  it  had  given  offence.  It  is  not  certain  whether  the 
variants  at  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  corrupt  Qi  of 
Philaster  indicate  a  revision.5  No  doubt  there  are  later 
examples,  and  no  doubt,  as  time  went  on,  a  tendency  to 
bring  revived  plays  into  accordance  with  new  dramatic 
fashions  is  likely  enough  to  have  developed.6  But  Sir 
Henry  Herbert's  documents  of  1622—42  do  not  disclose 
any  great  change  of  conditions.  The  extracts  made  by 
Malone  and  Chalmers  from  his  Office  Book  include 
notices  of  licences  for  some  1 30  plays.  Of  these  only  fifteen 
were  old,  and  seven  of  them  had  been  revised.  One  was 
a  play  of  Fletcher's  'corrected*  by  Shirley;  one  had  under- 
gone 'renewing'  and  one  'alterations';  four  had  had  one 
or  more  scenes  added.7  There  is  throughout  little  evidence, 
so  far  as  the  records  go,  for  any  widespread  theatrical  prac- 
tice of  what  may  be  called  stylistic  revision,  the  systematic 

1  Greg  in  Anglica,  ii.  212.  not  one  pleases,  and  therefore  they  are 

2  Satiromastix,   980.    Horace   says  driven  to  furbish  over  their  old,  which 
that  Demetrius  Fannius  'cut  an  inno-  stand  them  in  best  stead,  and  bring 
cent  Moore  i'  the  middle,  to  serue  him  them  most  profit.'    Heywood  apolo- 
in  twice;  &  when  he  had  done,  made  gizes  in  1637  for  the  out-of-date  rhyme 
Poules-worke  of  it*.  of  his  Royal  King  and  Loyal  Subject,  to 

3  Eliz.  Stage,  iv.  17.  which  'strong -lines'  had  come  to  be 

4  T.  M.  Parrott  in  M.L.R.  iii.  126.  preferred, 

8  EUx.  Stage,  iii.  222,  360,  43x5  iv.  7  Herbert  may  have  missed  some  re- 

34.-  vivals,  although  normally  (cf.  p.  104} 

6  Chamberlain  writes  in  1615  (Birch,  he  required  old  plays  to  be  submitted 

James,  i.  290),  'Our  poets'  brains  and  to  him,  and  the  extracts  we  have  are 

inventions  are  grown  very  dry,  inso-  not  (cf.  pp.  93,  100)  complete.  A  list 

much  that  of  five  new  plays  there  is  of  revivals  is  in  Albright  253. 


2H  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap.  VII 

line-by-line  correction  or  rewriting  of  old  dialogue,  either 
by  the  original  author  or  by  another.  Examples  of  this 
may  be  found  in  Wilmot's  recast  of  Gismond  of  Salerne  as 
Tancred  and  Gismund^  and  in  some  of  Ben  Jonson's  re- 
handling  of  his  own  work,  notably  Every  Man  In  his 
Humour.1  But  these  were  of  the  nature  of  literary  rather 
than  theatrical  enterprises.  The  nearest  approach  to  the 
same  sort  of  thing  in  a  theatrical  text  is  the  rewriting  of 
parts  of  Sir  Thomas  More.  It  probably  came  before 
production,  if  there  was  a  production.  The  rewriting 
of  Believe  As  Tou  List  for  the  satisfaction  of  the  censor 
is,  of  course,  not  in  point.  When,  therefore,  one  finds 
stylistic  revision  brought  forward  again  and  again,  as  a  con- 
jectural factor  in  the  literary  history  of  one  after  another  in 
a  series  of  plays,  one  is  justified  in  expressing  a  profound 
scepticism  as  to  whether  the  practice,  if  it  existed  at  all, 
can  have  been  anything  like  so  universal  as  the  theorists 
assume.  And  indeed  all  the  probabilities  are  against  it. 
The  ordinary  Elizabethan  audience  is  not  likely  to  have 
been  very  critical  of  style,  and  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  the 
process  contemplated  could  have  resulted  in  any  increase 
of  drawing  power  commensurate  with  the  cost  and  trouble 
involved.  Even  if  the  rewriting  could  be  done  on  the 
margins  of  an  existing  prompt-copy,  which  I  do  not  be- 
lieve, the  reviser  would  have  to  be  paid  and  new  parts 
made  out.  These  any  actors  already  familiar  with  the  old 
version  would  learn  with  reluctance.  Minor  alterations  or 
even  the  addition  of  scenes  would  not  cause  quite  the  same 
inconvenience,  and  no  doubt  some  adaptation  to  changing 
conditions  of  cast,  theatre,  and  audience  may  be  taken  for 
granted. .  There  are,  of  course,  texts  which  have  not  come 
down  to  us  in  their  original  form.  Some  are  reported; 
some  have  been  interpolated;  some  have  been  abridged. 
Abridgement,  like  interpolation,  is  a  form  of  revision,  and 
it  may  involve  consequential  adjustment  of  context.  Again 
we  must  assume  that' it  would  not  be  lightly  undertaken. 
The  motives  which  prompted  it  are  obscure.  It  has  been 
held  that  plays  were  abridged  for  court  performance. 

1  £&.  Stage,  iii.  359,  514$  Herford-Simpson,  i.  358. 


Chap.  VII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY  215 

There  is  no  obvious  reason  why  this  should  have  been  so. 
Court  entertainments  often  lasted  for  three  hours,  and  a 
full-length  play  of  3,000  lines  would  not  require  more.1  It 
is  true  that  in  Elizabethan,  although  not  in  Jacobean  days, 
a  mask  often  followed.  For  the  matter  of  that,  a  jig  often 
followed  on  the  public  stage.2  Some  of  the  shorter  plays 
may  have  originally  been  written  to  go  with  an  afterpiece. 
It  has  also  been  held  that  abridgement  was  for  provincial 
performance.  But  again,  while  we  do  not  know  much 
about  provincial  conditions,  it  is  a  mere  assumption  that 
a  country  audience  would  want  a  particularly  short  enter- 
tainment. There  is  plenty  of  leisure  in  the  country.  It  is 
true  that,  if  a  travelling  company  was  a  small  one,  the 
cutting  of  superfluous  parts  and  spectacle  might  incidentally 
lead  to  shortening.  But  such  companies  were  often  ten  or 
more  strong,  and  probably  many  London  plays  could  be 
found  to  fit  them  without  going  to  the  trouble  and  expense 
of  extensive  adaptation.3  It  is  just  possible  that  conditions 
of  lighting  tied  the  London  public  theatres  themselves  to 
shorter  performances  in  the  winter  than  in  the  summer, 
and  that  this  may  be  one  explanation  of  abridgement,4 

I  return  to  the  topic  of  stylistic  revision.  Mr.  Robertson 
questions  the  analogy  suggested  by  the  rarity  of  payments 
for  alterations  in  the  accounts  of  the  Admiral's  men;  and 
of  course  such  an  analogy  is  not  conclusive.  It  overlooks, 
he  says:5 — 

the  cardinal  fact  that  Shakespeare's  company  had  in  him  what 
no  other  company  possessed — a  gifted  member  who  could  revise  for 
them  any  play  that  came  into  their  hands,  lending  to  other  men's 
work  new  qualities  of  beauty  and  strength  where  he  would  or  could, 
pruning  redundances,  and  rewriting  or  planing  down  Chapmanese 
rhodomontade. 

Mr.  Robertson's  'cardinal  fact*  is  neither  Cardinal1  nor  a 

1  Etix,*  Stage,  i.  225.  To  the  evi-  Between  our  after-supper  and  bed- 

dence  there  given  may  be  added  Mid.  time? 

N.  Dr.  v.  i.  32,  a  EHx.  Stage,  ii.  551. 

what  masques,  what  dances  shr'l  3  Ibid.  L  3^2$  cf.  W.  J.  Lawrence 

we  have,  in  T.LJS.  (1919,  Aug.  21). 

To  wear  away  this  long  age  of  three  *  Elfa.  Stage,  ii.  543. 

hours  5  Canon,  iii.  76. 


2i6  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap.  VII 

'fact';  it  is  a  conclusion,  not  a  starting-point,  and  it  is  a 
conclusion  from  Mr.  Robertson's  own  long  series  of  con- 
jectures. The  only  fact  behind  it,  other  than  the  inter- 
pretation of  internal  evidence  for  which  it  is  treated  as 
axiomatic,  is  the  isolated  statement  of  Ravenscroft  about 
an  exceptional  play.  I  do  not  altogether  reject  that  state- 
ment, but  it  is  not  much  on  which  to  establish  a  conception 
of  Shakespeare's  habitual  method  of  work,  so  divergent 
as  Mr.  Robertson's  from  what  we  are  told  and  what  we 
can  gather  for  ourselves  of  his  temperament.  'His  mind 
and  hand  went  together;  and  what  he  thought,  he  uttered 
with  easiness',  say  Heminges  and  Condell.   'He  flowed 
with  facility',  says  Ben  Jonson.  The  last  man,  one  would 
suppose,  in  the  absence  of  rigid  proof,  to  tie  himself  to  the 
painful  following  up  and  meticulous  correction  of  the 
thoughts  and  words  of  another.  So  far  as  facts  go,  it  is  the 
Admiral's  and  not  the  Chamberlain's  company  which  we 
know  to  have  had  cobblers  of  poetry  ready  to  hand,  in 
Chettle  and  in  Dekker,  the  'dresser  of  plaies'  chaffed  by . 
Jonson,  who  between  them  did  most  of  the  small  amount 
of  revision  required.1  I  doubt  whether  many  critics  think 
with  Mr.  Robertson  that  Shakespeare  went  on  dressing 
up  alien  plays  well  into  his  mid-career,  even  if  they  believe 
him  to  have  had  a  fancy  for  rewriting  his  own  work.  It  is, 
however,  very  commonly  held  that  such  was  the  occupa- 
tion of  his  apprenticeship.  Even  this  is  hardly  a  certainty. 
Two  things,  besides  Ravenscroft's  statement,  seem  to  have 
contributed  to  form  the  notion.  One  is  the  long-standing 
belief  in  the  derivation  of  2, 3  Henry  ^/through  a  line-by- 
line revision  of  the  Contention.   That  support  must  go, 
when  it  is  realized  that  the  Contention  is  a  reported  text, 
and  could  never  have  been  written  as  it  stands.  The  other 
is  the  reference  to  Shakespeare  in  Robert  Greene's  address 
of  1592  to  his  fellow  dramatists,2 

Base  minded  men  all  three  of  you,  if  by  my  miserie  you  be  not 
warnd:  for  vnto  none  of  you  (like  mee)  sought  those  burres  to 

1  Cf.  p.  in.   It  TOS  Dekker  also      Worcester's  men  (Henslowe,  i.  181). 
who  altered  Sir  John  Qldcastie  for         *  Cf.  App.  B,  no.  iii. 


Chap.  VII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY  217 

cleaue:  those  Puppets  (I  meane)  that  spake  from  our  mouths,  those 
Anticks  garnisht  in  our  colours.  Is  it  not  strange,  that  I,  to  whom 
they  all  haue  beene  beholding:  is  it  not  like  that  you,  to  whome  they 
all  haue  beene  beholding,  shall  (were  yee  in  that  case  as  I  am  now) 
bee  both  at  once  of  them  forsaken  ?  Yes  trust  them  not:  for  there 
is  an  vpstart  Crow,  beautified  with  our  feathers,  that  with  his  Tygers 
hart  wrapt  in  a  Players  hyde,  supposes  he  is  as  well  able  to  bombast 
out  a  blanke  verse  as  the  best  of  you:  and  beeing  an  absolute  lohannes 
fac  totum^  is  in  his  own  conceit  the  onely  Shake-scene  in  a  countrey. 
O  that  I  might  intreat  your  rare  wits  to  be  imploied  in  more 
profitable  courses:  &  let  those  Apes  imitate  your  past  excellence, 
and  neuer  more  acquaint  them  with  your  admired  inuentions. 

The  phrase  'beautified  with  our  feathers',  helped  by  the 
parody  of  3  Henry  VI,  i.  4.  137,  has  been  regarded  as  a 
charge  of  appropriating  the  plays  of  Greene  and  his  fellows, 
and  in  particular  the  Contention^  by  rewriting  them.1  With 
the  fall  of  the  Contention^  this  interpretation  at  once  becomes 
less  plausible.  And  a  closer  examination  of  the  passage 
shows  that  there  is  really  no  charge  of  appropriation  at  all. 
It  is  an  attack  by  a  disgruntled  poet  on  the  players  who 
have  profited  by  him  and  now  have  no  further  use  for  his 
services,  and  one  of  whom  thinks  that  he  can  do  every- 
thing himself,  and  is  taking  the  job  of  writing  out  of  the 
mouths  of  better  men.  There  is  a  charge  of  imitation  at 
the  end,  no  doubt,  but  imitation  is  not  rewriting.  The 
'beautified  with  our  feathers*  cannot  be  dissociated  from 
the  'garnisht  in  our  colours'  applied  just  before  to  the 
actors  as  such,  of  which  it  is  a  mere  variation.  The  line 
of  attack,  the  use  of  the  feather  metaphor,  the  comparison 
of  an  actor  to  a  crow,  were  none  of  them  new.  Nashe 
wrote  in  1589  of  gentlemen  poets  who  had  'tricked  up  a 
company  of  tafFata  fooles  with  their  feathers*.2  Greene 
himself  in  1590  had  made  Cicero  speak  of  Roscius  as 
'proud  with  Esops  Crow,  being  pranct  with  the  glorie  of 
others  feathers'.3  There  is  a  conflation  of  themes  drawn 
ultimately  from  Aesop,  Martial,  and  Macrobius,  all  used 

'  R.  B.,  no  doubt,  so  took  it,  when  Stage,  iv.  234. 

he  echoed  the  Groat's-Worth  in  his         3  Francescoes    Fortunes;    cf.    J?/r«. 

Greene's  Funeratls  (App.  B,  no.  vi).  Stage,  iv.  236. 

*  Epistle   to   Menaphon-,   cf.   Eliz. 


218  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap.  VII 

to  point  the  gibes  of  playwrights  against  their  paymasters.1 
It  was  Greene's  prospect  .of  further  employment,  not 
his  property  in  what  he  had  already »  written,  that  he 
bewailed. 

Shakespeare  did  not  as  a  rule  invent  his  plots;  that  is  to 
say,  the  narratives  to  which  he  gave  dramatic  form.  This 
we  know,  because  for  many  plays  we  have  his  direct 
sources,  although  for  others  we  may  suspect  that  we  have 
•only  more  remote  sources  which  reached  him  in  inter- 
mediate versions,   perhaps   themselves   dramatic.    The 
direct  sources  he  handled  very  freely  when  they  were 
romance,  and  rather  less  so  when  they  were  history.  Often, 
especially  in  the  histories,  he  adopted  words  and  phrases 
from  what  lay  before  him.    Shakespeare  is  not  revising 
Holinshed  and  Plutarch,  and  he  is  not  merely  pruning 
and  planing  down  A  Shrew,  The  Troublesome  Reign,  and 
King  Leir.  He  is  taking  a  story,  using  so  much  of  it  as 
appeals  to  his  sense  of  dramatic  values,  altering  what  does 
not,  and  giving  it  literary  form  through  his  command  of 
language.   The  habk  of  stylistic  revision,  if  it  was  his  at 
all,  must  be  established  elsewhere,  and  on  internal,  not 
external,  grounds.  The  observed  use  of  sources  does  not 
reveal  it.  The  task  has  been  approached  from  two  angles, 
that  of  style  itself  and  that  of  bibliography.  Mr.  Robert- 
son is  the  most  prominent  of  many  writers  who  find  dis- 
parate styles  in  the  plays  of  the  canon.  His  conviction  of 
these  leads  him  to  seek  'clues-  to  other  dramatists,  whose 
work  it  is  historically  possible  that  Shakespeare  might 
have  revised;  and  after  he  has  framed  to  his  satisfaction 
canons  of  their  plays,  the  conviction  is  confirmed.  Here 
are  styles  consonant  to  those  which  he  repudiates  for 
Shakespeare.   As  a  result  he  transfers  the  primary  re- 
sponsibility for  Richard  III,  Richard  II,  Henry  F,  Julius 
Caesar,  and  Comedy  of  Errors  to  Marlowe,  for  Romeo  and 
Juliet  to  Peele,  for  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  to  Greene, 
for  Troilus  and  Cressida,  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,  and 
Measure  for  Measure  to  Chapman.  There  has  been  much 
collaboration  between  some  of  these  and  possibly  with  Kyd 

1  ER%.  Stage>  i.  377. 


Chap.  VII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY  219 

and  others.  Shakespeare  has  rehandled  all  these,  some 
more,  some  less,  'with  a  view,  first  and  last,  to  making 
them  serve  the  company's  ends'.  Of  the  plays  as  a  whole, 
'the  great  majority  are  simply  not  of  Shakespeare's  draft- 
ing'.1 Here,  of  course,  common  sense  revolts.  After  all, 
we  have  read  the  plays  for  ourselves,  and  have  learnt  to 
recognize  in  them,  through  all  their  diversities,  a  continu- 
ous personality,  of  which  style  is  only  one  aspect.  A  single 
mind  and  a  single  hand  dominate  them.  They  are  the 
outcome  of  one  man's  critical  reactions  to  life,  which  make 
the  stuff  of  cdmedy,  and  of  one  man's  emotional  reactions 
to  life,  which  make  the  stuff  of  tragedy.  Something  must 
be  wrong  with  the  methods  which  have  led  to  such  devas- 
tating conclusions. 

Everything  indeed  is  wrong  with  them.  It  would  be 
both  tedious  and  unprofitable  to  follow  Mr.  Robertson's 
painstaking  investigations  in  detail,  when  one's  starting- 
point  is  a  complete  rejection  of  the  axioms  by  which  they 
are  governed.  And  it  is  perhaps  superfluous  to  stress  the 
remarkable  diversity  between  his  reconstructions  and  those 
of  other  students  who  work,  broadly  speaking,  upon  the 
same  lines.  The  variant  distributions  of  Julius. Caesar 
among  Marlowe,  Shakespeare,  Jonson,  Beaumont,  Chap- 
man, and  Drayton  furnish  a  noteworthy  example.2  No 
doubt  a  method  may  be  sound,  and  may  be  more  skilfully 
applied  by  one  practitioner  than  by  another.  .But  the  con- 
flicts do  not  inspire  any  great  confidence  in  the  critical 
principles  which  underlie  them.  The  fundamental  error 
lies  in  a  misconception  of  the  limits  within  which  the  dis- 
crimination of  styles,  as  applied  to  the  particular  subject- 
matter  of  the  Elizabethan  drama,  must  operate.  The  per- 
cipience  of  style  is  a  very  real  quality.  It  has  its  origin, 
I  suppose,  in  the  same  natural  feeling  for  the  value  of 
words  and  the  rise  and  fall  of  rhythm,  which  is  the 
starting-point  of  literary  expression  itself;  and  it  may  be 
trained,  half-unconsciously,  through  reading  and  reflec- 
tion and  comparison  into  a  valuable  instrument  of  criticism. 
A  quasi-intuitive  sense  is  developed.  It  becomes  effective 

1  Canon>  iii.  zoo,  aoo.  a  Cf.  p.  398. 


220  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap.  VII 

in  the  presence  of  a  writer  who  has  a  characteristic  style 
and  has  room  and  inclination  to  give  that  style  free  play. 
It  enables  one,  for  instance,  to  dismiss  some  of  the  apocry- 
phal plays  ascribed  to  Shakespeare  without  more  ado.  It 
helps  at  least  to  disentangle  collaborators,  if  their  styles 
are  sufficiently  distinct,  and  their  separate  contributions 
of  sufficient  length.  It  must  make  allowance,  of  course, 
for  many  things;  for  the  gradual  evolution  of  styles,  for 
influences,  for  experiments,  for  variations  of  interest  and 
temper,  for  the  adaptation  of  manner  to  subject-matter. 
It  will  be  at  a  loss  when  a  writer,  as  sometimes  happens 
with  Shakespeare,  is  bored,  or  in  haste,  or  merely  careless, 
and  fails  to  hold  his  style.  Moreover  dramatic  writing,  and 
Elizabethan  dramatic  writing  in  particular,  contains  many 
bits  of  undistinguished  joiner's  work  which  may  help  the 
action  along,  but  are  in  themselves  colourless.  One  man 
might  have  written  them  as  well  as  another.  The  most 
percipient  critic  cannot  reasonably  claim  to  have  acquired 
a  faculty  which  is  fine  enough  to  identify  commonplace 
.  passages  or  very  short  passages.  And  he  will  be  wise  if 
he  refrains,  so  far  as  possible,  from  detecting  the  small 
touches  of  a  reviser.  Now  and  then  a  phrasing  seems  to 
stand  out  in  startling  distinctness  from  its  context,-  like 
the  'poor  worm*  which  'casts  copp'd  hills  towards  heaven' 
in  the  normally  unShakespearean  part  of  Pericles.1  But 
even  in  such  cases  attributions  can  rarely  be  made  with 
conviction.  It  is  said  that  the  ultra-violet  rays  will  reveal 
over-painting  in  pictures  through  different  effects  upon 
different  jngments.  The  sense  of  style  does  not  work  like 
an  ultra-violet  ray.  It  must  be  added  that  the  sense  of 
style  is  itself  ultimately  dependent  upon  external  evidence. 
There  is  no  way  of  getting  at  the  characteristics  of  an  in- 
dividual writer,  except  from  work  of  which  his  authorship 
is  acknowledged.  And  if  the  acquired  sense  is  then  used  to 
discredit  the  canon  wholesale,  a  vicious  circle  is  set  up,  of 
which  the  inevitable  result  is  chaos. 

The  scholarly  mind  seeks  to  confirm  its  intuition  by  an 
analysis  of  the  concrete  features  of  style.  A  writer  forms 

1  Per.  i.  1. 100. 


Chap.  VII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY  221 

his  own  rhetorical  habits  in  the  building  of  lines  and  the 
linking  of  line  to  line,  in  the  use  of  exclamation,  antithesis, 
iteration,  and  cumulation,  in  the  balance  of  noun  against 
noun  and  verb  against  verb.  He  has  his  own  small  man- 
nerisms of  locution;  his  recurrent  catch-phrases;  his 
ellipses  and  inversions;  his  superfluous  auxiliaries;  his 
archaisms,  it  may  be,  and  grammatical  solecisms.  These 
are  the  more  characteristic,  because  they  become  uncon- 
scious, and  are  often  at  first  sight  unnoticeable.  Such 
things  can  be  observed  and  tabulated,  with  due  regard  to 
the  risk  of  assuming  monopolies  in  them.  It  is  a  matter 
of  degree;  one  man  may  prefer  'you*  and  another  'ye'j  one 
"em'  and  another  'them',  if  printers  can  be  persuaded  not 
to  interfere.  It  is  so  too  with  rhythm.  The  normal  iambic 
blank  verse  is  capable  of  a  great  deal  of  variation,  both  in 
the  structure  of  individual  lines  and  in  the  grouping  of 
lines  into  paragraphs.  Stresses  can  be  inverted;  additional 
syllables  can  be  introduced;  pauses  can  come  at  the  ends 
of  lines  or  can  break  their  flow;  rhyme  can  be  employed, 
sporadically,  or  with  a  clinching  effect.  Alliteration  may 
be  obvious  or  restrained.  Writers  acquire  different  habits 
of  verse-manipulation,  and  many,  like  Shakespeare,  follow 
different  habits  at  different  stages  of  their  development.1 
Many  metrical  variations  can  be  expressed  in  statistics, 
but  not  all,  and  not  the  interplay  of  variations  upon  which 
the  resultant  rhythmical  effect  largely  depends.  Metrical 
analysis  requires  ample  space,  if  it  is  to  be  significant, 
since  a  rhythmical  habit  is  itself  varied  according  to  sub- 
ject-matter, and  these  variations  only  average  out  over 
long  stretches  of  verse.  Comparative  figures  for  complete 
plays,  perhaps  for  complete  acts,  may  be  of  value,  but  not 
for  single  scenes  and  still  less  for  single  speeches.  The 
method  has  proved  useful  in  dividing  the  results  of  col- 
laboration. The  rhythm  of  Shakespeare's  later  verse,  for 
example,  differs  markedly  from  that  of  Fletcher's;  less  so 
from  that  of  Beaumont's  or  of  Massinger's.  Naturally 
each  writer  has  also  his  individual  range  of  thought,  of 
dramatic  situations,  of  imagery,  of  allusion,  of  vocabulary. 

*  Cf.cluviii. 


222  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap.  VII 

But  here  there  is  much  give  and  take,  and  there  is  nothing 
more  dangerous  than  the  attempt  to  determine  authorship 
by  the  citation  of  parallels.  Authors  repeat  their  predeces- 
sors; their  successors  repeat  them;  they  repeat  themselves. 
Shakespeare's  self-repetitions  are  innumerable.  They  are 
commonest  between  plays  of  approximately  the  same  date, 
but  common  also  between  plays  remote  in  time,  especially 
when  analogous  themes  recur.  His  younger  contem- 
poraries also  repeat  themselves  freely  and  they  repeat  him 
just  as  freely.  Parallels,  therefore,  are  always  open  to  a 
double  interpretation,  if  chronology  and  lack  &f  ascription 
permit;  they  may  be  from  one  pen  or  from  two.  It  could 
hardly  be  otherwise.  All  literature  is  full  of  parallels,  but 
especially  the  literature  of  the  Elizabethans,  because  they 
had  a  far  more  restricted  tradition  behind  them  than  the 
moderns,  and  especially  the  literature  of  the  dramatic 
writers,  because  they  were  men  of  the  theatre.  Even  if 
they  were  not  actors  themselves,  they  lived  in  a  world  of 
representations  and  rehearsals,  and  their  minds  were  filled 
with  auditory  images  of  spoken  words,  which  naturally 
came  to  the  surface  when  they  wrote.  Parallels  are  of  all 
degrees;  they  descend  from  elaborate  passages  involving 
a  combination  of  common  elements,  through  dramatic 
motives,  similes  and  metaphors,  historical  and  mytho- 
logical allusions,  special  collocations  of  words,  mannerisms, 
down  to  the  mere  occurrence  of  unusual  words.  They  are 
in  fact  constantly  brought  forward  by  critics  as  evidence 
of  common  authorship.  This  they  rarely  can  be.  Where 
anonymous  work  is  in  question  nothing  better  may  be 
available,  but  conclusions  so  formed  should  at  the  most  be 
held  as  possibilities.  Probably  the  most  striking  parallels 
are  the  least  evidential;  it  is  the  vivid  idea  or  phrase 
which  catches  the  imagination  of  another.  There  is  a  nega- 
tive value  in  comprehensive  collections  of  parallels,  how- 
ever slight,  to  a  doubtful  play.  If  none  are  found  to  a  given 
writer,  he  is  not  likely  to  have  written  it.  The  converse 
does  not  hold  true,  but  it  may  chime  with  other  evidence. 
The  collections  made  for  Pericles  and  Henry  VIII  confirm 
distributions  of  shares  arrived  at  on  other  grounds.  It  is, 


Chap.  VII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY  223 

however,  difficult,  even  when  a  concordance  is  available, 
to  be  sure  that  a  collection  is  complete. 

The  history  of  Shakespeare's  writing  is  one  of  the 
gradual  development  of  a  characteristic  style  or  series  of 
styles.  In  its  matured  flights  it  is  often  unmistakable.  Its 
beginnings  belong  to  a  period  in  which  the  difficulties  of 
style-discrimination  are  at  their  maximum.  The  dramatists 
of  the  'eighties  may  reasonably  be  called  a  school.1  They 
have  largely  a  common  style  and  a  common  vocabulary, 
which  owe  much  to  Spenser,  to  the  Elizabethan  translators 
of  the  classics,  to  Seneca  and  his  court  imitators.  Marlowe 
is  the  dominant  figure,  with  Peele,  Greene,  Lodge,  and 
Nashe  as  his  satellites;  Kyd  stands  a  little  apart.  There  is 
a  mass  of  anonymous  work.    There  were  other  prolific 
writers,  such  as  Thomas  Watson,  of  whose  plays  we  know 
nothing.  Probably  we  should  be  able  to  differentiate  some 
of  the  personalities  a  little  better,  if  we  had  reliable  canons. 
Even  now,  Marlowe's  is  more  distinct  than  the  rest.  But 
there  are  no  such  canons.  Only  from  two  to  seven  plays 
are  ascribed  to  any  one  man,  and  of  these  many  have  been 
transmitted  in  such  corrupt  texts  that  they  are  valueless. 
The  style  of  non-dramatic  work  may  be  compared;  the 
translations  of  Marlowe,  the  pamphlets  of  Greene,  the 
ceremonial  poems  of  Peele.   But  these  only  give  limited 
help  in  judging  the  handling  of  dialogued  verse.    It  is 
illegitimate  to  follow  Mr.  Robertson  in  expanding  the 
canons  by  adding  first  one  anonymous  play,  and  then  on 
the  basis  of  this  another,  and  then  again  another.  There 
is  no  certainty  in  this  process,  which  mainly  rests  on 
parallels,  and  the  chain  becomes  weaker  at  every  link. 
This  school  was  Shakespeare's  early  environment,  and  his 
first  plays  were  inevitably  in  its  manner.  The  influence 
of  Marlowe  is  discernible  until  well  on  in  his  career.  Mr. 
Robertson,  who  has  all  the  arts  of  the  debater,  except 
perhaps  that  of  lucidity,  abounds  in  pejorative  terms  for 
what  he  calls  the  'Imitation  theory'.   He  represents  it  as 
charging  Shakespeare  with  a  'passion  for  plagiarism',  with 
'tranced'  or  'slavish'  mimicry,  with  'abject  parodies'.  If  he 

1  Cf.  The  Unrest  in  Shakespearean  Studies  (1927,  Nineteenth  Century). 


224  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap.  VII 

repeated  the  phrase  of  a  predecessor,  he  must  have  been 
an  'avid  copyist*  or  possessed  by  an  'overwhelming  im- 
pulse of  apery'.  This  is  only  beating  the  air.  Young 
writers,  even  when  they  have  done  good  work,  do  remain 
subject  to  influences,  especially  if  they  are  of  receptive,  as 
well  as  creative,  temperaments.  There  is  no  reason  why 
Shakespeare  should  have  been  an  exception.  Very  likely 
there  was  some  deliberate  imitation  at  first  of  admired 
models,  but  the  issue  is  not  primarily  one  of  imitation. 
I  have  written  above  of  parallels  and  repetitions.  Psycho- 
logically, these  may  mean  anything  from  plagiarism  to 
quite  unconscious  echoing.  A  writer's  mind  is  a  well  of 
subliminal  memory,  into  which  words  and  images  sink,  and 
to  the  surface  of  which  they  arise  again,  unbidden,  in  the 
act  of  composition.1  I  do  not  think  it  would  be  possible 
to  assert  Shakespeare's  authorship  of  2,  3  Henry  VI  on 
internal  evidence  alone.  They  are  school  work  and  full  of 
school  echoes.  There  are  many  images  drawn  from  coun- 
try life,  which  set  them  a  little  apart,  and  may  be  marks 
of  Shakespeare.  Those  which  recall  the  sea  are  also  note- 
worthy. Links  of  style  with  the  plays  to  come,  especially 
Richard  ///,  are  not  wanting.  Double  endings  are  much 
more  often  used  to  vary  the  blank  verse  rhythm  than  in 
any  of  the  ascertainable  plays  of  Marlowe  and  his  fellows, 
and  Mr.  Robertson  does  not  really  meet  this  point,  either 
by  citing  the  higher  proportion  of  double  endings  in  Mar- 
lowe's non-dramatic  translation  of  Lucan,  or  by  the  a 
priori  argument  that  towards  the  end  of  their  careers 
Marlowe,  Kyd,  and  Greene  must  all  have  felt  the  need  of 
some  relief  to  the  monotony  of  their  earlier  systems.2 
Metrical  evolution  is  not  a  Zeitgeist  which  all  poets  are 
alike  bound  to  follow.  We  are  not,  however,  left  to  in- 
ternal evidence  for  2, 3  Henry  VI,  and  there  is  certainly  no 
such  disparity  of  style  as  need  compel  us  to  abandon  the 
authority  of  the  First  Folio.  Ravenscroft's  testimony  puts 
Titus  Andronicus  upon  a  rather  different  footing.  It  may  be 

1  Cf.  the  admirable  study  of  the     (1927)* 

working  of  Coleridge's  imagination  in  *  Canon,  ii.  24;  Introd.  275  cf.  p. 
J.  L.  Lowes,  The  Eoad  to  Xanadu  260, 


Chap.  VII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY  225 

that  further  study  of  the  dramatic  style  of  the  'eighties  in 
relation  to  its  origins  will  disclose  lines  of  demarcation 
which  are  not  at  present  apparent.  At  present  it  is  tangled 
country,  in  which  it  is  not  much  use  to  run  like  a  hound 
through  the  undergrowth,  catching  a  scent  of  Marlowe 
here,  and  whimpering  there  at  a  suspicion  of  Kyd  or  Peele. 
Complicated  theories  of  collaboration  and  revision  cannot 
be  based  upon  such  findings. 

Critical  bibliography,  or  applied  bibliography,  as  Pro- 
fessor Pollard  prefers  to  call  it,  is  a  valuable  and  com- 
paratively new  instrument  of  textual  research.  It  begins 
with  the  observation  of  irregularities  in  the  texts  which  are 
not  capable  of  being  explained  by  printing-house  opera- 
tions, and  ascribes  them,  reasonably  enough,  to  the  condi- 
tion of  the  copy  brought  to  the  printers.  And  it  finds 
reasons  for  this  condition  in  the  vicissitudes  through  which 
plays  may  have  passed  at  the  theatre  itself.  It  attempts, 
in  fact,  to  reconstruct  their  stage-histories.  In  the  hands 
of  its  initiators,  this  process  has  generally  involved  the 
assumption  of  one  or  more  revisions;  revisions  by  Shake- 
speare of  earlier  work,  revisions  of  Shakespeare's  work  by 
later  adapters,  revisions  by  Shakespeare  of  his  own  work; 
and  on  occasion,  since  these  are  intrepid  researchers,  who 
do  not  quail  before  intricate  conclusions,  revisions  of  all 
three  types  successively.  All  this  is  not  pure  bibliography, 
although  bibliographical  facts  are  its  starting-point.  His- 
torical allusions  in  the  plays  are  drawn  upon  to  furnish 
support  for  suggestions  of  double  or  treble  dating.  Judge- 
ments of  style  are  also  involved,  and  incur  the  hazards  of 
style-discrimination  already  considered,  although  these  are 
diminished  when  it  is  only  a  question  of  comparison  be- 
tween the  phases  of  Shakespeare's  own  style,  the  general 
course  of  which  is  fairly  well  established.  I  must  not  be 
taken  as  implying  that  the  judgements  are  always  sound; 
they  seem  sometimes  to  rest  upon  work  which  is  not  fully 
characteristic.  There  are  some  anticipations  of  the  biblio- 
graphical method  in  the  unsystematic  writings  of  Fleay. 
But  it  came  to  the  front  in  two  notable  papers  by  Professors 
Pollard  and  Wilson  on  The  'Stolne  and  Surreptitious* 

3142.1  0 


226  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap.  VII 

Shakespearian  Texts.1  These  are  the  bad  Quartos  of  Romeo 
and  Juliet,  Henry  V^  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor >  and  Hamlet \ 
and  the  papers  offer  a  common  theory  as  to  their  origin. 
A  factor  or  reporting  by  a  pirate  actor  is  admitted.  But 
this  is  held  not  to  explain  all  the  facts.  It  is  supposed  that 
the  pirate  could  only  report  scenes  to  which  he  had  special 
access.  Moreover,  there  are  obvious  cuts;  there  is  non- 
Shakespearean,  as  well  as  Shakespearean  matter,  especially 
towards  the  end  of  each  play;  and  there  are  'bibliographical 
links*  between  the  bad  and  good  texts,  in  identical  mis- 
prints, punctuation,  spelling,  capitals,  and  lineation,  which 
imply  'some  kirid  of  organic  connexion*  between  the 
manuscripts  used.  The  theory  is  that  the  plays  existed  in 
non-Shakespearean  versions  before  1593;  that  by  that  year 
Shakespeare  had  made  a  beginning  with  the  revision  of 
them  all;  that  from  the  manuscripts  in  this  condition 
abridged  transcripts  were  'hastily*  taken  for  the  provincial 
tour  of  'Strangers'  men  which  began  in  May  1593;  that 
Shakespeare  subsequently  retouched  and  completed  his 
revisions  on  the  original  manuscripts;  and  that  when  these 
were  performed,  the  bad  Quartos  were  printed  from  the 
transcripts,  which  had  been  brought  by  the  pirate  actor 
into  'some  kind  of  conformity*  with  the  final  versions. 
These  papers  were  followed  by  separate  studies  of  Romeo 
and  Juliet^  Henry  7,  and  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor^  and 
had  been  anticipated  in  a  more  elaborate  dissertation  by 
Professor  Wilson  on  Hamlet?  Here  the  same  theory  was 
developed,  except  that  Shakespeare  was  eliminated  from 
the  earlier  revision  of  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor^  and  a 
revision  of  Hamlet^  anterior  to  his,  by  one  or  more  drama- 
tists for  an  unknown  company  was  introduced.  There  is 
much  in  the  theory  which  I  do  not  find  it  possible  to 
accept.  I  do  not  think  that  the  hypothesis  of  a  memorizing 
reporter,  who  could  do  a  little  'faking',  is  inadequate  to 
account  for  the  bad  Quartos.3  I  do  not  accept  the  evidence 
for  an  early  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  or  for  traces  of  early 

1  T.L£.  (9  and  16  Jan.  1919).  1603,  and  the  Hamlet  Transcript, 

*  Ibid.    (13    Mar.,    7,    14    Aug.     (1918). 
1919);  Wilson,  The  Ccfyfor  Hamtet,        *  Cf.  p.  157. 


Chap.  VII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY  227 

dates  in  the  others.  My  imagination  boggles  at  the  pic- 
ture of  Shakespeare  concurrently  revising  three  or  four 
different  plays.  The  'bibliographical  links'  are,  I  believe, 
confined  to  Romeo  and  Juliet  and  Hamlet,  and  they  seem 
to  me  to  point  most  naturally  to  some  use  made  of  the  bad 
Quartos  in  setting-up  the  good  ones.  Here,  indeed,  is  a 
particularly  weak  point  in  the  theory.  The  transcripts, 
to  accord  with  it,  must  have  been,  as  Professor  Wilson 
admits,  'meticulous',  and  what  Elizabethan  transcriber, 
working  'rapidly',  is  likely  to  have  been  meticulous  about 
spelling,  punctuation,  and  capitals?  Two  prepossessions 
appear  to  have  had  great  influence  upon  the  theorists.  One 
is  that  of  Shakespeare  as  essentially  a  'play-patcher',  for 
which  I  have  endeavoured  to  show  that  there  is  little 
foundation.  The  other  is  that  of  'continuous  copy',  which 
I  suspect  to  be  nothing  but  an  illegitimate  generalization 
from  the  anomalous  case  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  aided  by 
a  notion  that  the  cautious  and  economical  companies 
wanted  above  all  things  to  avoid  the  multiplication  of 
transcripts,  although  they  did  not,  if  the  views  of  Profes- 
sors Pollard  and  Wilson  are  sound,  take  any  care  to  keep 
them  out  of  the  hands  of  pirates  when  they  were  made.  In 
order  to  fit  Professor  Wilson's  reconstruction,  Shake- 
speare's two  revisions  of  Hamlet,  if  not  also  that  of  the 
anterior  dramatists,  must  all  have  been  done  on  the  manu- 
script of  the  original  play,  and  this  must  still  have  existed 
in  1604,  and  have  served  as  copy  for  the  Second  Quarto. 
Newly  written  sheets  may  have  replaced  part  of  it,  but  on 
part  the  old  matter  must  still  have  been  standing,  scored 
out  and  transformed  by  the  superimposed  results  of  at 
least  two  rehandlings  on  its  margins  and  on  appended 
slips.  There  is  no  room  for  a  fair  copy,  because  the  'bib- 
liographical links'  between  the  two  Quartos  have  to  be 
preserved.  Yet  the  Second  Quarto  does  not  show  any 
obvious  signs  of  the  considerable  textual  disturbance 
which  one  would  expect  in  such  circumstances. 

Professor  Pollard  ias  also  made  a  study  of  the  Yorkist 
plays,  which  may  perhaps  require  reconsideration,  if 
it  is  admitted  that  the  texts  of  The  Contention  are  re- 

£2 


228  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap.  VII 

ported.1  Professor  Wilson  has  dealt  bibliographically  with 
most  of  the  comedies  in  full-dress  editions.  Here,  too,  the 
doctrine  of 'continuous  copy'  is  apparent,  although  many  of 
the  reconstructions  involve  transcripts  at  some  stage  or 
other.  There  are  few  plays  which  are  not  suspected,  some- 
times on  the  faintest  of  indications,  of  having  originated  in 
therehandlingofolddramaticmaterial.  Part  of  this  material 
is  here  and  there  supposed  to  have  been  retained.2  Fairly 
drastic  adaptations  by  later  hands  are  inferred.3  But  per- 
haps the  most  noteworthy  feature  of  the  treatment  is  its 
frequent  resort  to  hypotheses  of  self-revision.4   Even  if 
one  is  unconvinced  by  Professor  Wilson's  reconstructions, 
one  must  be  impressed  by  the  alertness  of  his  mind,  the 
keenness  of  his  observation,  and  the  ingenuity  with  which 
he  fits  the  details  of  complicated  theories  together.  He  has 
certainty  called  attention  to  many  points  which  require 
explanation.  I  think  that  he  often  overlooks  the  possibility 
of  alternative  explanations.  Still  more  I  think  that  he  and 
I  take  different  views  of  Shakespeare's  temperament.  I  am 
prepared  to  accept  some  very  poor  work  as  Shakespeare's. 
He  must  have  'been  subject  to  moods,  which  were  not  all 
compatible  with  concentration  on  what  he  was  writing. 
During  a  considerable  period  he  was  under  the  shadow  of 
some  preoccupation  or  disillusionment,  the  cause  of  which 
remains  obscure;  and  the  life  and  subtlety  of  his  style 
suffered.  But  throughout  he  was  often  careless,  and  often 
perfunctory.   He  composed  easily,  and  his  artistic  con- 
science did  not  impel  him  to  be  scrupulous  in  avoiding 
inconsistencies  of  time,  action,  and  characterization.   No 
doubt  he  was  aware  how  very  easily  dropped  threads  pass 
unnoticed  on  the  stage.   I  do  not  suppose  that  he  had  a 
very  high  opinion  of  the  intelligence  of  his  audiences. 
I  am  not  essaying  here  a  complete  appreciation  of  Pro- 
fessor Wilson's  contribution  to  Shakespearean  scholarship. 
Much  of  it,  especially  on  the  strictly  textual  side,  is  ad- 


1  T.LS.  (19,  26  Sept.  1918).  4  Love's  Lab.  Lest,  Mid.  N.  Dr., 

a  Com.  of  Err ^  Tarn.  of  Shrew,  Mer.  Men  of  7en.,  As  You  Like  It,  Much 

ofVen^  Merry  Wvoes  of  W.  Ado,  Temp. 
3  Two  Gent,  of Fer^Meas.  for  Meets. 


Chap.  VII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY  229 

mirable.  Some  of  his  views  on  major  problems  have  been 
referred  to,1  and  others,  directly  concerned  with  re- 
vision, now  demand  consideration.  I  will  begin  with 
'cuts'.  We  know  that  cutting  was  a  theatrical  practice, 
since  authors  themselves  have  told  us  so.2  That  Shake- 
speare's plays  were  not  immune  is  shown  both  by  the 
condition  of  the  bad  Quartos  and  by  some  of  the  omissions 
in  parallel-text  plays,  for  which  cuts  are  the  most  plausible 
explanation^  The  latter  are  not  extensive;  they  do  not 
amount  to  the  replacement  of  a  three-hour  play  by  a  two- 
hour  play.4  Two  or  three  hundred  lines  go,  to  prevent 
normal  limits  from  being  exceeded,  or  merely  to  prevent 
particular  scenes  or  speeches  from  dragging.  Probably 
Hamlet  was  always  too  long  for  performance  as  a  whole. 
Shakespeare  may  have  been  more  intent  upon  his  poetry, 
than  upon  getting  it  over  the  stage-rails.  One  hopes  that 
he  remained  unperturbed  when  some  of  his  best  lines  were 
sacrificed.  Cutting  may  be  suspected  also  in  plays  for 
which  we  have  not  parallel-texts.  The  very  short  Macbeth 
possibly  represents  a  substantial  abridgement.  In  Professor 
Wilson's  reconstructions  abridgement  appears  as  a  factor 
subsidiary  to  revision.^  Old  motives  have  been  omitted  or 
given  less  importance  in1  order  that  new  ones  may  be 
introduced,  and  traces  of  the  process  remain.  Among 
these  he  is  apt  to  cite  the  presence  of  short  lines.  These 
may  very  well  in  some  cases  indicate  cuts,  especially  when 
they  are  abrupt  or  harsh,  or  are  accompanied  by  textual 
disturbance  or  some  hiatus  in  the  sense.  But  a  great  many 
of  those  called  in  aid  by  Professor  Wilson  do  not  pre- 
sent these  features,  and  more  plausible  reasons  can  be 
found  for  them.  Shakespeare  made  constant  use  of  short 
lines  for  exclamations  and  interjections,  for  formulas  of 

1  Cf .   pp.    153,    1 8 1,    187,    191,  (as  some  of  the  Pkyers  pretended).' 

198.  *  Rich.  Ill  (Q),  Tit.  Andr.  (Q), 

a  £/fc.  Stage,  iii.  192.  W.  J.  Law-  Rich.  II  (F),  2  Em.  IV  (Q),  Ham.  (F), 

rence  (T.L£.  21  Aug.   1919)  adds  Oth.  (Q),  K.  Lear  (F). 

R.  Brome,  The  Antipodes  (1640),  'You  *  Cf.  p.  214. 

shall  find  in  this  Booke  more  than  was  s  Two  Cent,  of  Per.,  Much  Ado, 

presented  on  the  stage,  and  left  out  of  Meas.for  Meas.,  Temp. 
the  Presentation  for  superfluous  length 


230  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap.  VII 

welcome  and  dismissal,  and  for  changes  of  address.   To  a 
growing  extent  he  tended  to  end  his  speeches  in  mid-line. 
The  beginning  of  the  next  speech  does  not  always  com- 
plete the  line.  Short  lines  occur  also  in  mid-speech,  and 
often  with  fine  rhythmical  effect.   There  is  a  pause  for 
meditation  or  gesture,  or  for  reversion  to  the  business  in 
hand.  The  cadence  of  a  broken  line  seems  to  have  pleased 
Shakespeare's  ear.  Professor  Wilson  knows  all  this  very 
well,  but  these  are  alternatives  which  he  commonly  dis- 
regards when  he  is  hot  on  the  scent  of  a  revision.  He  finds 
further  evidence  for  abridgement  in  the  dropped  threads, 
and  particularly  in  'ghosts'  who  appear  once  and  do  not 
recur,  and  in  personages  to  whom  reference  is  made,  but 
who  do  not  appear  at  all.  He  supposes  that  these  must 
have  been  given  more  prominence  in  lost  scenes.    The 
'kitchen  vestal'  Nell  in  Comedy  of  Errors  is  a  ghost,  whom 
'the  young  Shakespeare  must  surely  have  felt  an  almost 
irresistible  temptation  to  make  something  more  of  than 
has  come  down  to  us'.1    It  is  difficult  to  take  such  a 
priorisms  very  seriously. .  Every  dramatist  has  to  resist  the 
temptation  to  over-elaborate  his  minor  characters.  They 
serve  the  purpose  of  an  episode  and  vanish.    A  good 
example  of  a  personage,  whom  we  should  naturally  have 
looked  to  see  but  do  not,  is  Petruchio's  cousin  Ferdinand 
in  Taming  of  the  Shrew.2   Petruchio,  when  he  gets  home, 
sends  for  Ferdinand  to  make  Katharina's  acquaintance, 
and  he  never  comes.    Perhaps  the  audience  were  not 
exactly  on  the  tip-toe  of  expectation  for  him,  but  it  is  a 
badly  dropped  thread,  all  the  same.   In  the  Tempest,  the 
Duke  of  Milan's  **brave  son*  is  said  to  have  been  seen  in 
the  wreck.*  He  does  not  appear  with  the  other  rescued 
travellers,  and  there  is  no  lamentation  for  him.   An  in- 
troduction of  Maudlin  Lafeu  would  seem  obvious  in  the 
last  scene  of  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well>  but  she  remains 
absent.^  In  these  and  in  countless  other  cases,  I  think  we 
have  a  deliberate  dramatic  device.  Persons  and  incidents 
are  alluded  to,  but  kept  out  of  the  action.  The  effect  is 

1  Wilson,  Cm.  of  Err.  76.  3  Temp.  i.  a.  43&. 

a  Tom.  of  Shrew,  iv.  1. 154.  4  All's  Well*  v.  3. 


Chap.  VII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY  231 

one  of  solidity,  as  if  life  were  passing  on  all  the  time  behind 
the  stage.  Characters,  again,  are  sometimes  named  in 
initial  stage-directions,  but  have  no  share  in  the  dialogue. 
Violenta  enters  with  Diana  in  a  scene  of  All 's  Well  that 
Ends  Well)  and  is  forgotten  throughout.1  Juliet  is  un- 
expectedly dumb  on  her  first  appearance  in  Measure  for 
Measure?  We  must  of  course  allow  for  mutes,  especially 
in  court  or  processional  scenes.  But  sometimes  the  silence 
is  clearly  unnatural.  Leonato  is  accompanied  by  'Innogen 
his  wife*  at  the  beginning  of  Much  Ado  About  Nothing.* 
She  recurs  in  one  later  scene,  but  has  not  a  word  through- 
out the  play.  A  lady,  whose  daughter  is  successively  be- 
trothed, defamed,  repudiated  before  the  altar,  taken  for 
dead,  and  restored  to  life,  ought  not  to  be  a  mute.  It  is 
not  motherly.  Abridgement  is  a  possible  explanation.  But 
did  Shakespeare  sometimes  write  down  initial  entries  before 
he  had  thought  out  the  dialogue,  and  omit  through  care- 
lessness to  correct  them  by  eliminating  characters  for 
whom  he  had  found  nothing  to  say,  and  ought  to  have  found 
something  to  say,  if  they  were  to  be  on  the  stage  at  all  ? 

To  establish  abridgement  would  not  of  itself  serve  to 
establish  any  further  revision.  Professor  Wilson  has  been 
successful  in  pointing  to  mislineations  which  can  be  best 
explained  as  due  to  the  incorporation  in  the  text  of  pas- 
sages irregularly  written  in  margins,  or  in  one  case  on  an 
appended  slip  with  a  catchword.4  These  may  well  be  later 
additions.  Some  of  them  only  amount  to  interpolations  of 
clowning  or  spectacle.  The  most  notable  are  in  the  last  act 
of  Midsummer-Night's  Dream,  and  that  act  has,  I  think, 
been  revised.  Many  other  mislineations,  to  which  he 
would  assign  a  similar  origin,  may  be  better  put  down  to 
different  causes,  such  as  the  printer's  confusion  between 
prose  and  verse.*  There  are  textual  duplications  also, 
where  one  may  agree  with  him  in  thinking  that  corrected 
and  uncorrected  versions  have  been  left  standing  together, 
through  the  absence  or  disregard  of  deletion  marks.6  This 

*  Ibid.  iii.  5.  «  Wilson,  Mer.  vfVen*  106. 

*  Meas.for  Mcas\  i.  2. 120.  *  Cf.  p.  181. 

3  Much  Ado,  i.  x.  i;  ii.  x.  x.  Some         6  Wilson.  Love's  Lab.  Lost,  107. 
modern  editions  omit  her. 


232  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap.  VII 

indicates  revision,  no  doubt,  in  a  sense,  but  by  no  means 
necessarily  the  wholesale  revision  of  a  play.  The  altera- 
tions may  be  mere  afterthoughts  at  the  time  of  original 
composition.  We  cannot,  on  this  hypothesis,  take  quite 
literally  the  statement  of  Heminges  and  Condell  that  they 
had  scarce  received  a  blot  in  Shakespeare's  papers.  It 
would  be  absurd  to  take  it  quite  literally.  But  it  certainly 
does  not  suggest  any  constant  habit  of  self-revision.  An- 
other feature  upon  which  Professor  Wilson  frequently 
relies  is  the  variation  of  nomenclature.  In  so  far  as  this  is 
merely  a  matter  of  spelling,  whether  in  text,  stage-direc- 
tions or  speech-prefixes,  little  importance  can  be  attached 
to  it.  The  orthographic  vagueness  of  the  Elizabethans 
reaches  its  maximum  with  proper  names.  The  same  name 
will  have  different  spellings  in  a  single  letter  or  other  docu- 
ment. Some  men  do  not  even  spell  their  own  names 
consistently;  it  seems  that  Shakespeare  did  not.1  .The 
most  one  can  say  is  that,  if  one  spelling  is  habitually  used 
in  one  batch  of  scenes  and  another  in  a  second  batch,  the 
two  batches  are  not  likely  to  have  been  written  at  the  same 
sitting.  But  Professor  Wilson  is  more  concerned  with  the 
variations  in  stage-directions  and  speech-prefixes  between 
personal  and  descriptive  or  'generic'  names,  and  he  has 
evolved  a  theory  that  generic  names  'may  be  taken  as  clues 
suggesting  revision'.  He  even  goes  so  far  as  to  conjecture 
that  Dogberry  and  Verges  may  be  designated  as  Con- 
stable and  Headborough  in  a  scene  of  Much  Ado  About 
Nothing  because  these,  of  all  names,  Shakespeare  'could 
not  be  bothered'  to  remember.2  I  do  not  believe  a  word 
of  it*  Such  variations  occur  in  nearly  every  play.  Pro- 
fessor Wilson  sometimes  weaves  them  into  his  argument, 
and  sometimes  leaves  them  unnoticed.  He  lets  Abner 
by  and  spots  Melchizedek.  Any  attempt  at  a  uniform 
application  of  his  theory  would  indeed  land  him  in  chaos. 
Probably  Shakespeare  wrote  Dogberry  and  Verges  when 
•he  was  conscientious  before  dinner,  and  Constable  and 
Headborough  when  he  was  relaxed  afterwards.  It  did  not 
matter.  He  was  not  following  the  precise  tradition  of  the 

*  Cf.  p.  506.  *  Wilson,  Itntt  Lab.  Lost,  naj  Much  Ado,  96. 


Chap.  VII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY  233 

literary  drama.  The  personal  and  the  generic  names 
would  be  alike  intelligible  to  the  players  and  their  book- 
keeper. Similar  variations  are  to  be  found  in  play  manu- 
scripts and  'plots*,  and  here  too  we  get  summary  notes 
for  the  return  of  groups,  although  it  is  with  'something 
of  a  gasp'  that  Professor  Wilson  comes  in  Love's  Labour's 
Lost  upon  the  'bald*  direction  'Enter  the  Ladyes'.1  Re- 
vision, according  to  Professor  Wilson,  sometimes  took  the 
form  of  rewriting  verse  scenes  in  prose,  and  of  this  traces 
remain  in  the  presence  of  lines  still  recognizable  as  verse. 
Terse-fossils'  he  calls  them.  I  do  not  think  that  these 
rhythms  have  any  such  significance.  They  are  a  constant 
feature  of  Shakespeare's  prose.  They  are  most  frequent  in 
the  comedies  of  his  mid-career,  such  as  As  Tou  Like  //and 
Twelfth  Night.  But  there  are  many  also  in  Coriolanus  and 
Winter's  Tale,  and  no  j>lay  is  altogether  without  them. 
Often  they  form  single  line  speeches,  and  here  it  may  be 
uncertain  whether  prose  or  verse  is  intended.  But  they 
also  occur  sporadically  in  the  middle  of  speeches,  and  some- 
times in  groups.  Professor  Wilson  is  far  from  noticing 
them  all.  The  number  might  be  much  increased  i^ 
with  Professor  A.  E.  Morgan,  one  took  into  account  not 
only  regular  decasyllabic  rhythms,  but  others  which  could 
be  carried  as  such  in  a  blank  verse  passage  by  substituting 
a  verse  intonation  for  a  prose  one  and  allowing  for  tri- 
syllabic feet.2  These,  however,  when  they  come  in  a  prose 
passage,  do  not  really  read  as  anything  but  prose.  A 
dramatic  value  is  sometimes  involved.  The  rhythm  cor- 
responds to  a  rise  in  the  emotional  scale  of  utterance.  It 
is  often  so  in  single  lines  of  As  Tou  Like  It.  And  Shake- 
speare was  not  unconscious  of  the  device.  Orlando  enters 
in  a  prose  scene  with  'Good  day  and  happiness,  dear 
Rosalind',  and  Jaques  departs  with  the  comment,  'Nay, 
then,  God  be  wi'  you,  an  you  talk  in  blank  verse'.3  More 
generally,  a  writer,  who  makes  habitual  transitions  be- 
tween prose  and  verse,  may  naturally  have  had  the  instinct 

i  Wilson,  Love's  Lab.  Lost,  1135  cf.     SA.'t  Henry  W  (1924). 
p.  119.  3  As  You  Like  It,  iv.  1-30. 

*  A,  E.  Morgan,  Some  Problems  of 


234  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap.  VII 

that  the  use  of  a  rather  rhythmical  type  of  prose  served  to 
bridge  the  line  of  demarcation.  But  the  feature  is  not  at 
all  one  peculiar  to  Shakespeare.  Verse  rhythms  are  com- 
mon enough  in  prose  or  all  kinds.  The  most  austere 
modern  taste,  based  on  eighteenth-century  models,  tends 
to  reject  them  from  ordinary  straightforward  discourse. 
But  they  are  freely  used  in  imaginative  writing,  especially 
to  give  a  final  grace  to  a  period.  Landor  has  them  and 
Walter  Pater.  Stevenson  is  fond  of  them.  Ruskin  ends  a 
decorative  passage  of  The  Crown  of  Wild  Olive  with  one 
decasyllabic  and  two  octosyllabic  rhythms.  There  are  no 
doubt  places  in  Shakespeare  where,  with  what  Professor 
Wilson  calls  'a  little  innocent  faking',  several  prose  lines 
together  could  be  turned  into  blank  verse.  The  rhythms 
here  may  be  a  little  overdone,  but  I  do  not  feel  that, 
without  the  faking,  they  are  so  obtrusive  as  to  necessitate 
a  theory  of  revision.1  Professor  Pollard,  who  has  noticed 
the  same  characteristic  of  the  middle  comedies,  realizes 
the  difficulty  of  crowding  Shakespeare's  early  years  with 
too  many  first  versions  of  plays,  but  thinks  that  he  may  have 
written  some  fragmentary  scenes  in  verse,  laid  them  aside, 
and  utilized  them  for  the  prose  of  later  plays.2  The  sug- 
gestion is  one  which  there  is  evidence  neither  to  confirm 
nor  to  refute. 

Internal  evidence  makes  it  necessary  to  accompany  a 
general  acceptance  of  the  traditional  Shakespearean  canon 
with  certain  qualifications,  which  may  be  set  out  in  sum- 
mary form.3  Collaboration  must  be  admitted  in  Henry  Fill 
and  probably  in  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  as  well  as  in  the 
uncanonical  Pericles  and  Two  Noble  Kinsmen,  and  pos- 
sibly in  Edward  III.  Of  replacement  of  the  work  of  a 
collaborator,  which  figures  in  some  of  the  speculations  of 
Fleay,  and  was  presumably  suggested  by  Ben  Jonson's 
treatment  of  Sejanus,  there  is  no  sign.4  Apart  from  the 
touching-up  of  Titus  Andronicus,  which  rests  primarily  on 
external  evidence,  and  the  insertion  of  two  late  scenes  into 

*  Wilson,  As  To»  Like  If,  945  cf.  my     4  Library,  v.  374. 
comment  in  Year's  Work>  vii.  125.  3  For  details,  cf.  ch.  ix. 

*  Pollard,  Foundations,  14,  and  in         *  Fleay,  L.W.  180,  2045  cf.  p.  210, 


Chap.  VII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY  235 

the  heterogeneous  structure  of  i  Henry  VI \  there  is  nothing 
substantial  which  points  to  the  dressing-up  of  alien  plays. 
Some  afterthoughts  written  into  Low's  Labour's  Lost, 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  Julius  Caesar,  and  Troilus  and  Cressida, 
are  revealed  by  failures  to  delete  the  original  wordings. 
Mislineations  in  The  Shrew  and  Timon  of  Athens  may  indi- 
cate others.  But  such  alterations  are  no  proof  of  complete 
rewriting,  and  for  this  the  evidence  is  of  the  scantiest.  An 
exception  may  be  made  for  Midsummer-Night's  Dream, 
which  looks  as  if  it  had  been  converted  from  a  wedding 
entertainment  into  a  play  for  the  public  stage,  by  some 
changes  in  the  last  act  and  the  provision  of  an  alternative 
ending.  Some  passages  in  2,  3  Henry  VI  may  owe  their 
origin  to  a  revival.  We  know,  again  on  external  evidence, 
that  a  line  not  now  found  in  Julius  Caesar  met  with 
criticism  from  Jonson.  It  would  be  absurd  to  lay  down 
categorically  that  there  has  been  no  touching-up  anywhere 
else.  But  that  the  great  majority  of  the  plays  are  Shake- 
speare's from  beginning  to  end,  and  that,  broadly  speak- 
ing, when  he  had  once  written  them,  he  left  them  alone, 
I  feel  little  doubt.  These  are  propositions  which,  so  far, 
disintegrating  criticism  has  entirely  failed  to  shake. 

That  most  of  the  texts  have  undergone  some  adaptation 
for  theatrical  purposes  is  obvious.  Here,  again,  I  do  not 
believe  in  any  substantial  rewriting.  There  has  clearly 
been  some  shortening,  and  although  the  existence  of 
alternative  versions  sometimes  makes  it  possible  to  restore 
the  omitted  passages,  this  is  not  so  for  all  the  plays. 
Whether  Shakespeare  himself  exercised  any  discretion  as 
to  the  cuts  we  cannot  tell ;  they  are  not  all  equally  judicious. 
A  few  interpolations  can  also  be  traced;  bits  of  spectacle,  a 

.ike  It,  Cymleline,  Tempest,  and  notably  Macbeth;  bits  of 


clowning  in  Merchant  of  Venice,  Hamlet,  King  Lear,  and  pos- 
sibly Othello.1  It  is  not  always  certain  that  the  songs  used 

1  Cf.,  however,  Gildon's  tradition  bad  Qq  show  evidence,  would  pre- 
(App.  C,  no.  xxi)  as  to  Shakespeare's  sumably  not  get  into  the  prompt- 
responsibility  for  incongruous  clown-  book,  unless  it  was  exceptionally  suc- 
ing  in  Qtfatto.  Sheer  gag,  of  which  the  cessful. 


236  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap.  VII 

were  Shakespeare's  own.  Altered  stage-directions  tell  of 
casting  decisions  and  of  the  activities  of  the  book-keeper  in 
giving  effect  to  these  and  in  clearing  up  uncertainties.  The 
methods  followed  are  already  familiar  to  us  in  the  theatrical 
manuscripts.1  Again  the  parallel  texts  come  to  our  aid. 
The  Folio  directions  for  i  Henry  IV  almost  exactly  repeat 
those  of  the  Quarto.  In  2  Henry  IV  the  basis  is  the  same, 
but  there  has  been  a  minute  revision,  which  indicates  a 
careful  study  of  the  text.  Many  directions  are  shortened 
by  the  omission  of  notes  for  apparel  and  the  like.  Errors 
are  corrected,  although  a  few  new  ones  are  made.  Over- 
looked entries  are  marked.  Indefinite  numbers  are  re- 
placed by  specific  ones.  Superfluous  supernumeraries  are 
eliminated.  The  same  features  are  apparent  in  the  Folio 
versions  of  Hamlet \  Othello,  and  King  Lear,  and  to  a  lesser 
extent  in  other  plays.  The  speech-prefixes  may  be  checked, 
and  the  musical  notes  altered  or  varied.  Mr.  Lawrence 
thinks  that  the  King's  men  did  not  use  cornets  until  they 
acquired  the  Blackfriars  and  took  on  the  musical  tradition 
of  that  house.  If  he  is  right,  the  appearance  of  cornets  in 
a  Folio  stage-direction  would  be  evidence  of  production 
or  revival  in  or  after  1609.  Such  a  revival  would  not  of 
course  necessarily  imply  textual  revision,  as  Mr.  Lawrence 
assumes.2  Even  where  there  are  no  parallel  texts,  the  hand 
of  the  book-keeper  may  be  suspected  in  directions  so 
worded  as  to  suggest  a  gloss  or  to  leave  a  duplication.*  It 
is  not  necessary  to  ascribe  to  him  the  placing  of  entries  in 
advance  of  lines  spoken  by  the  entrants;  or  references  to 
properties  familiar  in  the  tiring-house  but  not  to  the 
audience,  such  as  'Enter  Piramus  with  the  Asse  head';  or 
technicalities  such  as  'for'  in  the  sense  of  'disguised  as'.* 

1  Cf. p.  118.  v.  x.  190,  'Enter...  E.  Dromio  of 

*  W.  J,  Lawrence,  Sh.*s  Workshop,  Ephesus'j    Mer.    of  Ven.    ii.    5.    i, 
48.  Lawrence  doubts  whether  a  simi-  'Enter  lewe  and  his  man  that  was  the 
lar  significance  attaches  to  the  mention  Clowne'j  As  Tou  Like  It,  ii.  4.   i, 
of  hautbois;  cf.  T.L3.  (1929,  June  13,  'Enter . . .  Clowne,  alias  Touchstone's 
July  18,  25).  Much  Ado,  ii.  x. i,  'Enter  Leonato,  his 

*  Com.  of  Err.  iv.  4. 43,  'Enter  . . .  brother,  ...  and  Beatrice  his  neece, 
a  Schoolemasier,  caU'd   Pinch'5  149,  and  a  kinsman*,  with  similar  examples 
•Runne  all  out*,  duplicating  150,  *Exe-  at  ii.  i.  89,  218;  iii.  4.  i  j  Hi,  5.  i. 
unt  omnes,  as  fast  as  may  be,  frighted'j         *  MM.  N.  Dr.  iii.  x.  106  (F)j  As  Tou 


Chap.  VII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY  237 

An  actor-author,  thinking  in  terms  of  the  theatre,  might 
quite  well  so  write.  Norareimt-  ^"      J*      •"  *  " 


the  book-keeper's,  although  the  form  would  be  natural 
for  him.1  I  do  not  think  that  warnings  for  the  preparation 
of  properties  in  advance  occur  in  the  canonical  plays. 
They  do  in  Two  Noble  Kinsmen.  But  the  book-keeper  is 
clearly  revealed  in  several  places  where  the  printer  has 
preserved  the  name  of  an  actor  written  beside  or  in  sub- 
stitution for  that  of  the  character  which  he  played.2 
Generally  this  occurs  in  stage-directions,  and  the  analogy 
of  the  theatrical  manuscripts  rules  out  the  alternative  ex- 
planation of  Professor  Gaw,  who  finds  here  the  mind  of 
Shakespeare  unconsciously  identifying  the  part  with  the 
personality  of  its  representative^  The  case  is  perhaps  not 
so  simple  where,  as  in  Much  Ado  About  Nothing,  the  actor- 
names  run  through  a  series  of  speech-prefixes.  But  pro- 
bably Shakespeare  wrote  inadequate  prefixes,  in  the  form 
of  mere  numerals,  and  the  book-keeper  glossed  them.  A 
guard  must  be  kept  against  the  attempts  of  Fleay  and 
others  to  find  the  names  of  actors  in  those  assigned 
textually  to  servants  and  other  members  of  crowds.4  The 
book-keeper  could  have  no  occasion  to  trouble  about 
textual  names,  and  the  author,  writing  in  advance  of  cast- 
ing, would  certainly  not  know  to  whom  such  small  parts 
would  be  given. 

Traces  of  the  censorship  must  also  be  expected  in  the 
texts.  They  are  not  very  numerous.  The  Chamberlain's  and 
King's  men  were,  of  all  companies,  in  the  closest  relation 
to  the  court  through  their  patrons,  and  the  least  likely  to 
run  counter  to  authority,  except  by  inadvertence.  An 
episode  capable  of  political  misrepresentation  was  removed 

Like  It,  ii.  4.  i,  'Enter  Rosaline  for  stage-hand. 

Ganimed,   Celia  for  Aliena'j  Dead  *  Cf.  chh.  ix,  x  (2, 5  Hen.  PI,  Tarn. 

Man's  Fortune,  plot  12,  'Exit  Eschines  of  Shrew,  Rom.  &  Jul.,  Mid.  N.  Dr., 

and  enter  for  Bell  veille'.  2  Hen.  IP,  Hen.  P,  Much  Ado,  AlTs 

*  His  'Ring  the  bell*  seems  to  have  Well,  T.N.K.), 

got  into  the  text  of  Macb.  ii.  3.  85.  3  A.  Gaw,  Actors'  Names  in  Basic 

I  do  not  know  that  we  need  ascribe  the  Shakespearean   Texts    (P.M.Ljt.  xl. 

frequent  'Knocke*  to  him.  In  fact  we  530);  cf.  p.  122. 

do  not  know  whether  knocking  was  4  Fleay,  L.W.  265 ;  Wilson,  Tarn. 

done  by  an  in-coming  actor  or  by  a  of  Shrew,  118. 


238  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap.  VII 

from  Richard  II  before  it  was  printed,  and  restored  in 
Jacobean  editions.  Possibly  two  passages,  at  which  Anne 
of  Denmark  might  be  likely  to  take  offence,  were  similarly 
removed  from  Hamlet.  These  point  to  press  censorship, 
rather  than  stage  censorship.    Indiscreet  nomenclature 
has  been  reformed  in  Henry  IV  and  Merry  Wives  of  Wind- 
sor',  and  possibly  in  Hamlet.  A  jest  on  German  and  Spanish 
costume  has  disappeared  from  the  Folio  version  of  Much 
Ado  About  Nothing,  and  one  on  a  Scottish  lord  from  that  of 
the  Merchant  of  Venice.  An  intervention  of  the  censor  may 
also  account  for  the  absence  of  the  'four  nations'  scene, 
with  its  Captain  Jamy,  from  the  reported  text  of  Henry  V. 
We  know  that  James  resented  the  girding  at  Scotland  in 
English  plays.1    Conceivably  the  absence  of  Shallow's 
'dozen  white  louses'  from  the  reported  Merry  Wives  of 
WindsorTR&y  be  no  mere  accident.  There  seems  to  have  been 
some  pruning  of  social  and  political  criticism  in  King  Lear, 
which  has  differently  affected  the  Quarto  and  the  Folio; 
of  pathological  details,  with  a  similar  divergence,  in  Troilus 
and  Cressida;  and  of  an  unpatriotic  sentiment  and  some 
bits  of  indelicacy  in  2  Henry  IF.  All  this  comes  to  very 
little.    The  treatment  of  profanity  is   something  of  a 
puzzle.  Dr.  Greg,  discussing  the  oaths  in  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor^  suggests  that  they  may  not  have  been  altered 
before  the  text  was  prepared  for  press  in  1623, 2  This  is 
possible,  but  it  does  not  seem  to  me  very  probable.  The 
Act  of  Abuses  survived  the  wreck  of  more  comprehensive 
measures  against  profanity,  which  were  debated  in  Parlia- 
ment during  1604  and  1605-6,  but  proved  controversial 
and  never  got  upon  the  Statute-book.3    It  was  of  very 
limited  application.    No  person  may  'in  any  Stage  play, 
Interlude,  Shewe,  Maygame  or  Pageant  jestingly  or  pro- 
phanely  speake  or  use  the  holy  Name  of  God  or  of  Christ 
Jesus  or  of  the  Holy  Ghoste  or  of  the  Trinitie'.4  Lam  not 

1  Cf.  p.  65.  251,  270,  286,  294,  300;  Lords  Jour- 

*  Greg,  Merry  Wvws  of  W*  xxxvi,  nats,  ii.  338,   340,  354,   365,   368, 

with  a  comparative  table  (liv)  for  Q  369,  381,  400,  4x2,  414,  4x6,  436, 

and  F.  Similar  tables  would  be  valu-  446. 

able  for  other  plays.  *  Full  text  in  Eliz.  Stage,  iv.  338. 

'  Commons  Journals,  i.  247,  250, 


Chap.  VII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY  239 

lawyer  enough  to  know  whether  the  courts  were  ever  called 
upon  to  interpret  the  Act.  Presumably  it  would  bar  the  dimi- 
nutive oaths  in  which  the  divine  names  are  corrupted  or 
implied,  but  not  those  by  the  Virgin,  or  the  saints,  or  the 
rood,  or  the  mass,  or  mere  imprecations.1  Sir  Henry 
Herbert,  as  we  have  seen,  was  inclined  to  press  it  hard, 
and  was  overruled  by  Charles  I.2  If  the  king  had  been 
a  better  etymologist,  he  would  have  realized  that,  while 
'  Faith'  was  an  asseveration,  'Death*  and  'Slight*  were,  at 
least  in  origin,  oaths.  4By  God's  death*  is  said  to  have  been 
the  favourite  oath  of  Elizabeth.3  But  whatever  degrees  of 
profanity  the  Act  covered,  it  clearly  only  related  to  words 
spoken  on  the  stage,  and  not  to  words  put  into  print.  One 
does  not  see,  then,  why  the  publishers  of  the  First  Folio 
should  have  gone  to  the  pains  of  expurgation.  There  is 
certainly  none  in  the  Quarto  reprints  between  1606  and 
1623.  Whether  there  is  any  evidence  for  Dr.  Greg's  sug- 
gestion outside  Shakespeare,  I  am  unable  to  say.  The 
Honest  Man's  Fortune  was  reformed  when  Herbert  re- 
allowed  it  in  1625,  but  printed  with  its  oaths  in  the 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher  Folio  of  1 647,  and  again  reformed 
for  that  of  1 679.  On  the  whole  it  looks  as  if  the  expurga- 
tion of  Shakespeare  must  date  from  stage  revivals  of  1606 
or  later.  Whatever  its  genesis,  it  is  nowhere  complete  and 
in  most  plays  quite  perfunctory.  My  notes  as  to  this  are 
far  from  exhaustive,  but  perhaps  sufficient  to  give  a  fair 
picture.  The  plays  which  have  suffered  most  are  J,  2 
Henry  17.  Here  'God',  'Lord*,  'Jesus',  even  when  seri- 
ously used,  are  generally  omitted,  or  replaced  by  a  sub- 
stitute. On  the  other  hand,  they  are  sometimes  kept,  even 
when  profane.  'Christ*  remains,  but  the  epithet  is  dropped 
from  'christen  names*.  Of  other  forms,  'God's  body', 
'God's  light',  "Sblood*,  and  'Zounds*  go,  but  'Cock  and  pie' 
is  kept.  So,  as  a  rule  is  'Marry',  but  *By*r  Lady*  and  'By 

1  Examples  of  profanity  are  oaths  Zounds,  Gogs  wouns,  'cock  and  pie*, 

by  God's  blood  (plud),  body,  bodykins,  by  Gis,  'ods  heartlings,  lifelings,  me, 

bread,  lady,  lid,  liggens,  lugges,  light,  my  little  life,  my  will,  nownes,  pilli- 

mother,  sonties,  wounds;  God's  my  kins,  plessed  will. 

life$  and  the  corrupt  forms,  'sblood,  2  Cf.  p.  102. 

sdeath,  'sfoot,  'slid,  'slight,  'swounds,  »  Speed,  Chronicle,  f.  1200. 


240  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap.  VII 

the  mass',  which  one  would  have  thought  equally  outside 
the  danger  of  the  Act,  generally  go.  Even  imprecations 
and  asseverations  are  not  always  spared.  Here  the  treat- 
ment is  quite  inconsistent,  since  'Faith',  'By  my  troth',  and 
'By  this  hand',  while  sometimes  altered,  are  also  intro- 
duced as  substitutes.  Similarly,  although  'Heaven*  nor- 
mally replaces  'God',  there  is  at  least  one  omission  of  'By 
heaven'.  'The  devil'  and  even  'Hang  yourself  are  also 
omitted.  Two  scriptural  citations  are  cancelled.1  But  it 
is  amusing  to  notice  that  Hotspur's  advice  to  his  wife  to 
leave  'in  sooth'  and  swear  'a  good  mouth-filling  oath' 
remains  unaltered,  except  for  the  omission  of  'Heart!'.2 
One  is  tempted  to  think  -that  Herbert  must  have  been  at 
work  on  Henry  IV \  possibly  also  on  Othello,  where  the 
pruning,  although  less  stringent,  follows  much  the  same 
lines.  Elsewhere  the  asseverations  are  usually  left  alone, 
and  even  the  revision  of  oaths  proper  is  lightly  taken. 
There  is  a  fair  amount  of  it  in  Hamlet.  These  plays  give 
a  little  support  to  the  theory  that  the  expurgation  took 
place  at  revivals,  since  there  is  some  evidence  for  the 
performance  of  them  all  during  1606-23.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  same  is  true  of  Much  Ado  About  Nothing  and 
Titus  Andronicus.  But  Much  Ado  About  Nothing  has  only 
lost  a  single  passage,  with  four  'Gods'  in  it,  and  Titus 
Andronicus  only  the  word  'Zounds'.3  Of  the  other  plays 
for  which  good  parallel  texts  are  available,  alterations  are 
not  infrequent  in  Richard  II  and  Richard  ///,  but  Love's 
Labour  V  Lost,  Midsummer-Night's  Dream,  Romeo  and 
Juliet,  and  Merchant  of  Venice  show  only  one  or  two  apiece. 
There  is  more  variation  between  the  Folio  and  the  bad 
Quartos  of  Henry  ^and  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  but  here- 
we  cannot  tell  how  much  profanity  the  reporters  may  have 
contributed.  Fluellen  in  the  one  and  Sir  Hugh  Evans  and 
Doctor  Caius  in  the  other  are,  however,  hard  swearers, 
only  equalled  by  Mrs.  Quickly.  The  commonest  feature 
throughout  is  the  substitution  of  'God'  by  'Heaven'.  In 

1  j  Hen.  IV,  i.  2.  995  2  Hen.  17,         3  MuckAdo,\v.i.  19-**$  Tit.Andr. 
iii.  2. 41.  iv.  2, 71. 

*  i  Hen.  IF,  iii.  x.  252. 


Chap.  VII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY  241 

Love's  Labour  9s  Lost  'Jove'  takes  its  place.1  'The  dickens' 
for  'The  devil'  in  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  is  the  earliest 
known  example  of  that  euphemism.2  For  some  reason 
'Zounds'  is  an  expletive  particularly  selected  for  reproba- 
tion. Nearly  all  the  plays  written  after  1 606,  as  well  as  the 
earlier  Julius  Caesar,  Troilus  and  CressiJa,  and  King  Lear, 
have  pagan  settings,  and  to  swear  by  heathen  deities  was 
safe  enough.  There  are  of  course  a  few  anachronisms. 
On  the  other  hand,  pagan  asseverations,  particularly  by 
'Jove',  also  appear  in  plays  whose  setting  is  not  pagan. 
Among  the  later  plays  Henry  VIII  has  still  a  moderate 
amount  of  profanity.  How  far  the  early  plays,  for  which 
we  have  only  Folio  texts,  have  been  altered  can  only  be 
matter  for  conjecture.  In  Twelfth  Night,  of  which  there 
were  certainly  late  revivals,  Sir  Toby  Belch  swears  less  and 
more  mildly  than  one  would  expect,  and  the  use  of  'Jove*  is 
common.  In  King  John  the  examples  of 'Heaven'  markedly 
outnumber  those  of  'God'.  But  it  must  remain  doubtful 
whether  such  indications,  or  the  slighter  changes  in  some 
of  the  Folio  texts  already  noted,  can  be  taken  as  evidence 
of  revivals.  It  certainly  cannot  be  assumed  that  when 
"Rosalind  swears  'by  my  troth,  and  in  good  earnest,  and  so 
God  mend  me,  and  by  all  pretty  oaths  that  are  not  danger- 
ous', she  was  thinking  of  the  Act  of  Abuses.*  Quite  apart 
from  the  use  of  'God',  profanity  was  'dangerous',  long 
before  a  Jacobean  Parliament  made  it  so.  On  the  other 
hand,  with  the  case  of  Much  Ado  About  Nothing  before  us, 
it  is  equally  impossible  to  assume  that  the  preservation  of 
numerous  oaths  in  the  Folio  means  that  there  was  no  late 
revival.  The  sporadic  nature  of  the  expurgation  where 
any  is  traceable,  remains  perplexing.  Professor  Wilson 
suggests  that  it  may  have  been  more  completely  done  in 
'parts'  than  in  prompt-copies.4  But  if  so,  why  should  it 
have  been  done  in  prompt-copies  at  all  ?  It  is  an  alternative 
possibility  that  marginal  expurgations  on  prompt-copies 
were  not  always  observed  by  the  printers  or  perhaps  were 
not  thought  worth  the  trouble  of  carrying  to  examples  of 

1  Love's  Lab.  Lost,  v.  2.  3x6.  3  As  You  Like  It,  iv.  x.  194. 

1  Merry  Wvues  of  W.  iii.  2. 19.  4  Wilson,  Love's  Lab.  Lost,  190. 

3142*1  » 


242  THE  PROBLEM  OF  AUTHENTICITY    Chap,  VII 

the  Quartos  when  these  were  used  as  copy  for  the  Folio, 
It  certainly  cannot  be  assumed  that,  even  under  the  com- 
paratively mild  regime  of  Sir  George  Buck,  there  was  not 
more  expurgation  in  the  actual  representation  of  revived 
plays,  especially  at  court,  than  the  state  of  the  Folio  texts 
reveals. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY 

[Bibliographical  Note.  Malone's  Attempt  to  Ascertain  the  Order  in  which 
the  Plays  of  Shakspeare  were  Written  first  appeared  in  the  2nd  ed.  (1778) 
of  the  Works  by  Johnson  and  Steevens.  Its  final  form  is  in  Variorum, 
ii.  288.  G.  Chalmers  accumulated  additional  'topical9  allusions,  many  of 
which  were  far-fetched,  in  his  Supplemental  Apology  (1799),  266,  and 
others  have  been  detected  by  later  commentators.  A  collection  is  in  H.  P. 
Stokes,  An  Attempt  to  Determine  the  Chronological  Order  of  Shakespeare9 s 
Plays  (1878).  The  successive  chronologies  of  F.  G.  Fleay  are  in  his  Si. 
Manual  (1876,  1878),  22,  C.  M.  Ingleby's  Sh.  the  Man  and  the  Book, 
ii.  (1881),  99  sff.,  and  his  Life  and  Work  of  Sh.  (1886),  175.  That  of 
E.  Dowden  is  in  his  Shakspere,  His  Mind  and  Art  (1875,  &c.),  and  as 
a  table  in  his  Shakspere  Primer  (1877),  56.  That  of  F.  J.  Furnivall,  in 
its  fullest  form,  is  in  his  Introduction  to  the  Leopold  Shakespere  (1877)  and 
in  the  revision  of  that,  with  the  help  of  J.  Munro,  for  the  Century 
Shakespeare  (1908).  Naturally  most  biographies  and  systematic  com- 
mentaries deal  with  the  subject.  Among  German  contributions  are  W. 
Konig,  Ueter  den  Gang  von  Shs  dichterischer  Entooickelung  (1875,  J. 
x.  193);  H.  Conrad  (Isaac),  Z«  den  Shs  Sonn.  (1878-9,  Archiv,  lix.  155, 
241;  Ix.  33;  Ixi.  177,  393;  Ixii.  i,  129),  Die  Son.-Periode  in  ShsLeben 
(1884,  J.  xix.  176),  Die  Ham.-Periode  in  Shs  Leten  (1885-6,  Arch. 
Ixxiii.i63,37i; lxxiv.45;  Ixxv.i, 269), ShsSelbstbekenntniss(i%<yj\Eine 
neue  Methode  der  chronologischen  Sh.-Forschung  (1909,  Germ.-Rom.  Monats- 
schrift,  i.  232,  307);  B.  T,  Strater,  Die  Perioden  in  Shs  dichterischer 
Entwickelung  (1881-2,  Archiv,  Ixv.  153,  383;  Ixvi.  121,  273;  Ixvii.  i, 
129,  417);  G.  Sarrazin,  Zur  Chronologie  von  Shs  Jugenddramen  (1894, 
J.  xxix.  92),  Zur  Chronologie  von  Shs  Dichtungen  (1896,  J.  xxxil  149), 
W.  Shs  Lehrjahre  (1897),  Wortechos  bet  SA  (1897-8,  J.  xxxiii.  120; 
xxxiv.  119),  Aus  Shs  Meisterwerkstatt  (1906);  E.  Ekwall,  Die  Sh- 
Chronologie  (1911,  Germ.-Rom.  Monatsschrift,  iii.  90). 

On  vocabulary  are  R.  Simpson,  Sh.'s  Once-Used  Words  (1874,  N.S.S. 
Trans.  1 1 5),  J.  D.  Butler,  Once-  Used  Words  in  Sh.  (i  886,  N.r.  SA.  Soc.). 
Tables  of  such  words  for  individual  plays  are  in  the  Henry  Irving  Shake- 
speare. On  Sh's.  prose  are  H.  Sharpe,  The  Prose  in  Sh!s  Plays  (1885, 
N.S.S.  Trans.  523);  V.  F.  Janssen,  Die  Prosa  in  Shs  Dramen 
(1897);  G.  Bordukat,  Die  Aigrenzung  zwischen  Fers  und  Prosa  in  den 
Dramen  Shs  (1918).  The  special  treatises  on  metre  are  given  in  the  BibL 
Note  to  Appendix  H.  On  other  stylistic  features  are  G.  Kramer,  Ueber 
Stichomythie  und  Gleichklang  in  dem  Dramen  Shs  (i 889) ;  L.  Wurth,  Da s 
Wortspielbei  Sh  ( 1 89  5) ;  F.  G.  Hubbard,  Repetition  and  Parallelism  in  the 
Earlier  Elizabethan  Drama  (1905,  P.M.LA.m.  360),^  Type  of  Blank 

R2 


244  THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY    Chap.  VIII 

Perse  Line  Found  in  the  Earlier  Elizabethan  Drama  (1917,  PM.L.A. 
xzxii.  68);  W.  Hflbner,  Der  Pergleick  bei  Sh  (1908);  H.  Earth,  Das 
Epitheton  in  den  Dramen  des  Jungen  Sh  und seiner  Porganger  (1914). 

Theories  about  Love's  Labour's  Won  are  in  R.  Farmer,  Essay  on  the 
Learning  of  Sh.  (1767,  Par.  i.  314)5  J.  Hunter,  Disquisition  on  Tp.  (1839, 
New  Illustrations  of  Sh.  i.  130,  359);  G.  L.  Craik,  The  English  of  Shake- 
speare (1857),  7;  A.  E.  Brae,  Collier,  Coleridge  and  Sh.  (1860);  P.  A. 
Daniel,  Q.  Facs.  ofM.A.  (1886),  v;  R.  Boyle,  A.W.  and  L.L.W.  (1890, 
£.$.  xiv.  408);  F.  v.  Westenholz,  SAs  L.L.W.  (1902,  Beilage  zur  Allge- 
meinen  Zeitung)*,  A.  H.  Tolman,  Shs  L.L.W.  (1904,  Views  about  Ham. 
243);  H.  D.  Gray,  L.L.L.  with  a  Conjecture  as  to  L.L.W.  (1918).] 

A  RECOGNITION  of  the  substantial  homogeneity  of  most  of 
the  plays  simplifies  the  approach  to  the  problem  of  chrono- 
logy, since  it  makes  it  reasonable  to  assume,  in  the  absence 
of  any  special  ground  for  suspecting  an  insertion,  that 
datable  allusions  have  not  been  added  by  a  reviser,  and 
that  the  mention  of  a  play  by  name  implies  its  existence 
much  in  the  form  in  which  it  is  preserved  to  us.  It  will 
again  be  well  to  attach  primary  weight  to  external  evi- 
dence, and  a  convenient  starting-point  is  provided  by  the 
list  of  plays  in  the  Palladis  Tamia  of  Francis  Meres,  which 
was  presumably  compiled  before  the  registration  of  that 
book  on  7  September  I598.1  This  at  once  enables  us  to 
segregate  a  considerable  group  of  comparatively  early 
works.  There  are  six  comedies,  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona, 
Comedy  of  Errors,  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  'Loue  labours 
wbnne',  Midsummer-Night's  Dream,  Merchant  of  Venice\ 
four  histories,  Richard  II,  Richard  III,  Henry  17,  King 
John\  and  two  tragedies,  Titus  Andronicus  and  Romeo  and 
Juliet.  Meres  names  them  in  the  order  here  followed,  but 
it  is  not  necessary  to  suppose  that  he  paid  attention  to  their 
respective  dates  of  production.  On  the  other  hand,  the  list 
is  so^long  as  to  suggest  that  it  includes  all  that  were  known 
to  him,  and  that  it  was  only  bjr  a  happy  accident  that  he 
was  able,  by  treating  the  histories  as  tragedies,  to  balance 
six  of  these  against  six  comedies  in  accordance  with  his 
artificial  manner  of  writing.  Meres  took  his  M.A.  degree 
at  Cambridge  in  1591  and  by  incorporation  at  Oxford  on 
10  July  1593.  It  was  probably  after  that  date  that  he 

1  App,  B,  no',  xiii. 


Chap.  VIII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY  245 

came  to  London,  where  he  was  dwelling  in  Botolph  Lane 
by  1597,  and  if  so,  Henry  VI  or  any  other  play  not  on  the 
stage  between  1593  and  1598  may  have  been  unknown 
to  him.  His  mention  of  Henry  IV  leaves  it  uncertain 
whether  he  knew  both  parts,  and  the  identity  of  Love 
Labours  Won  must  for  the  present  be  left  aside. 

Terminal  dates  before  which  production  must  have 
occurred  can  be  established  for  a  good  many  plays.  The 
commonest  sources  are  entries  in  the  Stationer?  Register^ 
or  the  title-pages  of  printed  editions.  The  former  give 
precise  dates,  the  latter  years  only,  which  are  best  taken 
as  calendar  years.1  Twice  the  Register  specifically  notices 
a  court  performance  during  the  preceding  Christinas.  The 
lists  of  such  performances  for  1604-5  anc^  161 1-12  give 
some  help.  So  does  the  Diary  of  Philip  Henslowe.  A  few 
performances  at  the  Inns  of  Court  or  in  public  theatres 
are  independently  recorded  in  contemporary  documents. 
And  there  are  a  few  literary  notices,  some  of  which  are  not 
capable  of  very  exact  dating.  Echoes  cannot  be  relied  on, 
but  Jonson's  quotation  of  Julius  Caesar  in  E.M.O., 
'Reason  long  since  is  fled  to  animals,  you  know*,  is  more 
than  an  echo.  Only  one  play  carries  its  own  evidence. 
This  is  Henry  V,  where  a  chorus  indicates  not  only  a  ter- 
minal date,  but  also  an  initial  date,  after  which  the  pro- 
duction can  be  placed.  As  a  rule  the  initial  dates  are  much 
less  certain  than  the  terminal  ones.  Henslowe's  'ne's  are 
fixed,  but  it  is  only  the  earliest  of  Shakespeare's  plays  with 
which  Henslowe  can  have  been  concerned.  An  account 
of  the  Globe  fire  shows  that  Henry  VIII  was  then  a  new 
play.  For  the  rest  we  can  only  rely  upon  the  dates  at  which 
'sources'  became  available,  in  most  cases  too  remote  to 
be  helpful,  and  upon  allusions  in  the  plays  themselves  to 
datablehistorical  events.  These  require  handlingwith  great 
caution.  Few  are  so  definite  as  to  be  primary  evidence; 
others  at  the  most  come  in  as  confirmatory,  after  a  pro- 
visional date  has  been  arrived  at  on  safer  grounds.  We 
can  be  pretty  sure  that  the  references  to  Scottish  kings  of 
England  in  Macbeth  are  Jacobean,  and  if  so,  the  reference 

'  Cf.p.17* 


246  THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY    Chap.  VIII 

to  equivocators  in  the  same  play  is  likely  to  be  to  the 
equivocators  of  the  Gunpowder  Plot,  We  can  be  a  little 
less  sure  that  the  bit  about  the  currish  wolf  in  Merchant 
of  Venice  reflects  the  Lopez  conspiracy,  but  if  so,  a  phrase 
about  a  coronation  may  echo  that  of  Henri  IV.  Yet  both 
equivocation  and  coronations  were  common  phenomena, 
to  which  any  dramatist  might  refer  at  any  date.  So,  too, 
were  the  plague  and  tempests  and  even  eclipses,  although 
an  allusion  is  fairly  plausible  in  Midsummer-Night's  Dream 
to  the  rather  unusual  bad  weather  of  1594-5,  which  im- 
pressed the  chroniclers,  and  an  allusion  in  King  Lear  to 
the  double  eclipse  of  sun  and  moon  in  1605,  which  was 
heralded  by  the  astrological  prophets.  But  Shakespeare 
does  not  seem  to  have  been  greatly  given  to  'topical'  allu- 
sions, and  the  hunt  for  them  becomes  dangerous,  especially 
if  it  is  inspired  by  a  desire  to  link  the  plays  with  con- 
temporary literary  controversies  in  which  he  may  have 
taken  but  little  interest,  or  with  incidents  in  the  chequered 
careers  of  the  Earls  of  Southampton  and  Essex,  revealed 
to  us  by  the  ransacking  of  political  archives,  but  of  doubt- 
ful familiarity  to  the  Elizabethan  populace  or  its  play- 
wrights.1 

It  is,  however,  possible,  on  external  evidence  alone,  to 
draw  up  a  trial-table  of  primary  indications  limiting  initial 
and  terminal  dates  for  nearly  but  not  quite  all  of  the  plays. 
They  are  not  all  equally  convincing,  but  I  have  excluded 
a  good  many  others  which  are  less  so.  I  put  them  in 
columnar  form,  the  'initial'  indications  on  the  left,  the 
'terminal'  indications  on  the  right.  The  order,  for  con- 
venience of  reference,  is  that  of  my  final  table.2 

2  Henry  71. 

Registration  (12  March  1594). 
Print  (1594). 

3  Henry  VI. 

Parody  by  Greene  (ob.  3  Sep- 
tember 1592). 
Print  (1595). 
*  Cf.  p.  67.  *  Cf.  p.  269. 


Chap.  VIII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY  247 

I  Henry  PL 

Production  (ne)  by  Henslowe     Production  by  Henslowe 
(3  'March  1592).  (3  March  1592). 

Allusion  by  Nashe  in  Pierce 
Penilesse  (8  August  1592). 

Richard  III 

Registration  (20  October  1597). 
Print  (1597). 

Comedy  of  Errors. 

Performance  at  Gray's  Inn 
(28  December  1594). 

Titus  Andronicus. 

Production  (ne)   by  Henslowe     Production  by  Henslowe 
(24  January  1  594).  (24  January  1  594). 

Registration  (6  February  1594). 
Print  (1594). 

Two  Gentlemen  of  Verma. 

Notice  by  Meres  (7  September 


Love*s  Labour  *s  Lost. 

Allusion  to  Chapman's  Shadow     Performance  at  court  (Christ* 
of  Night  (1594).  mas  1597-8  at  latest). 

Print  (1598). 

Romeo  md  Juliet. 

Print  (1597). 

Richard  II. 

No  use  in  ist  edition  of  Daniel's     Use  in  2nd  edition  of  Daniel's 
Civil  Wars  (1595).  Civil  Wars  (1595). 

Performance  for  Sir   Edward 

Hoby  (9  December  1595). 
Registration  (29  August  1597). 
Print  (1597). 

Midsummer-Nighfs  Dream. 

Allusion  to  weather  of  1594.        Notice  by  Meres  (7  September 
Allusion  to  baptism  of  Henry  of        1  598). 
Scotland  (30  August  1594)* 


248  THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY    Chap.  VIII 

King  John. 

Notice  by  Meres  (7  September 
1598). 

Merchant  of  Venice. 

Allusion  to  death  of  Lopez  Use  of  Gobbo  as  nickname  for 
(7  June  1594).  Sir  Robert  Cecil  (27  October 

•    1596). 

Registration  (22  July  1598). 

1  Henry  17. 

Registration  (25  February 

1598). 
Print  (1598). 

2  Henry  IV. 

Survival  of  name  Oldcastle 
(abandoned  by  25  February 
1598). 

Much  Ado  About  Nothing. 

No  notice  by  Meres  (7  Septem-  'Stay'  in  Stationers'  Register 
ber  1598).  (4  August  1600). 

Registration  (23  August  1600). 
Print  (1600). 

Henry  7. 

Allusion  to  campaign  of  Essex  Allusion  to  campaign  of  Essex 
in  Ireland  (begun  27  March  in  Ireland  (ended  28  Septem- 
1599).  ber  1599). 

No  notice  by  Meres  (7  Septem- 
ber 1598). 

Julius  Caesar. 

No  notice  by  Meres  (7  Septem-  Performance  seen  by  Thomas 
ber  1598).  Platter  (21  September  1599). 

Quotation  in  Jonson's  E.M.O. 

(1599)- 
Echo  in  Weever's  Mirror  of 

Martyrs  (1599). 

As  You  Like  It. 

No  notice  by  Meres  (7  Septem-  *Stay*  in  Stationers9  Register 
ber  1598).  (4  August  1600). 


Chap.  VIII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY  249 

Twelfth  Night. 

Use  of  Robert  Jones's  First  Book     Performance  at  Middle  Temple 
of  Airs  (1600).  (2  February  1602). 

No  notice  by  Meres  (7  Septem- 
ber 1598). 

Hamlet. 

Allusion  to  revival  of  boy  actors     Notice  by  Gabriel' Harvey  (be- 
(1599).  fore  25  February  1601). 

No  notice  by  Meres  (7  Septem-     Registration  (26  July  1602). 
ber  1598).  Print  (1603). 

Merry  Wives  of  Windsor. 

No  notice  by  Meres  (7  Septem-     Registration  (18  January  1602). 
ber  1598).  Print  (1602). 

Trot/us  and  Cressida. 

Echo  in  prologue  of  Jonson's     Registration  (7  February  1 603). 

Poetaster  (1601). 
No  notice  by  Meres  (7  Septem- 
ber 1598). 

fMeres  names  no  later  plays,  but  his  list  is  getting  too 
remote  to  be  worth  citation.] 

Measure  for  Measure. 

Performance  at  court  (26  De- 
cember 1604). 

Othello. 

Performance  at  court  (i    No- 
vember 1604). 

King  Lear. 
Registration  of  source-play  Leire     Performance  at  court  (26  De- 

(8  May  1605).  cember  1606). 

Allusions  to  eclipses  (27  Septem-     Registration      (26    November 
ber  and  2  October  1605).  1607). 

Print  (1608). 

Macbeth. 
Allusion    to    equivocation    of    Performance  seen  by  Foraian 

Gunpowder  conspirators  (20  April  1611). 

(Jan.-March  1606). 
Allusion  to  reign  of  James  I 

(25  March  1603). 


250  THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY    Chap.  VIII 

Antony  and  Cleopatra. 

Registration  (20  May  1608). 

Pericles. 

Performance  seen  by  Venetian 
ambassador  (5  January  1 6o6<  > 
23  November  1608). 

Print  of  derivative  novel  (1608). 

Print  (1609). 

Cymbelme. 

Performance  seen  by  Forman 
(2i<>29  April  1611). 

Winter's  Tale. 

Performance  seen  by  Forman 
(15  May  1611). 

Performance  at  court  (5  No- 
vember 1611). 

Tempest. 

Performance  at  court  (i  No- 
vember 1611). 

TJ   -^  TJTT  f  T 

jnienry  riii* 

Performance,  as  *new'  play  (29    Performance  (29  June  1613). 
June  1613). 

Two  Noble  Kinsmen. 
Use  of  dance  from  mask  by  Beau- 
mont (20  February  1613). 

The  table  is  a  mere  scaffolding.  Four  plays,  Taming  of 
the  Shrew,  All's  WellThatEnds  Well,  Coriolanus,  and  Timon 
of  Athens,  do  not  appear  in  it  at  all;  and  for  many  others, 
especially  in  the  Jacobean  period,  a  considerable  range  of 
dating  remains  open*  On  the  other  hand,  it  provides  confir- 
mation of  the  Palladis  Tamia  list  for  the  early  years,  except 
as  regards  the  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  and  King  John.  It 
establishes  fixed  points  for  i  Henry |  VI,  Titus  Andronicus, 
Henry  V,  and  Henry  VIII\  and  fairly  narrow  limits  for 
Much  Ado  About  Nothing,  Julius  Caesar,  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor,  As  Tou  Like  It,  Twelfth  Night,  and  Hamlet,  on 


Chap.  VIII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY  251 

the  reasonable  assumption  that  if  these  had  existed  when 
Meres  wrote,  he  would  have  named  them.  It  points  to  an 
early  run  of  Yorkist  histories  and  a  later  run  of  Lancastrian 
histories.  And  it  at  least  suggests  several  other  tentative 
groupings.  There  is  a  common  lyrical  quality  in  Love's 
Labour's  Lost,  Romeo  and  Juliet,  Midsummer-Night's 
Dream,  and  Richard  II,  which  are  all  in  Meres's  list. 
There  is  a  common  vein  of  realistic  comedy  in  Henry  IF 
and  the  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  which  are  further  linked 
by  the  recurrence  of  identical  characters.  There  is  a  com- 
mon vein  of  courtly  comedy  in  As  Tou  Like  It  and  Twelfth 
Night.  Both  of  these  groups  must  come  very  near  the 
end  of  the  sixteenth  century.  Julius  Caesar,  Hamlet,  and 
Troilus  and  Cressida  again  must  all  be  late  Elizabethan 
tragedies,  and  Othello  seems  to  begin  a  series  of  Jacobean 
tragedies,  to  which  King  Lear,  Macbeth,  and  Antony  and 
Cleofatra,  coming  in  no  certain  order,  belong.  Finally  Cym- 
beline,  Pointer's  Tale,  and  Tempest,  which  emerge  in  rapid 
succession  at  the  tail-end  of  the  list,  have  again  a  common 
quality  of  romantic  tragi-comedy,  which  makes  it  probable 
that  they  were  not  far  apart  in  origin.  These  are  not  all 
equally  valid  inferences,  since  some  of  them  rest,  not  so 
much  upon  positive  indications,  as  upon  the  absence  of 
earlier  indications.  But  if  they  are  provisionally  accepted 
and  the  plays  studied  in  accordance  with  the  time-order 
of  the  groups,  it  is  possible  to  arrive  at  an  outline  concep- 
tion of  Shakespeare's  development,  as  regards  both  drama- 
tic temper  and  the  use  of  language,  which  in  its  turn 
makes  a  starting-point  for  further  progress.  This  is  not 
a  book  of  aesthetic  criticism,  and  I  do  not  propose  to 
retrace  an  argument  which  has  been  already  worked  out 
by  many  writers.  Instead  I  will  draw  upon  the  admirable 
treatment  of  Professor  Dowden.  He  distinguishes  four 
stages  in  Shakespeare's  career,  which  he  calls  respectively 
'In  the  workshop',  'In  the  world',  'Out  of  the  depths',  and 
'On  the  heights'.  The  first  is  the  period  of  'dramatic 
apprenticeship  and  experiment',  the  'second  that  of  the 
later  historical  plays  and  the  mirthful  and  joyous  comedies, 
the  third  that  of  grave  or  bitter  comedies  and  of  the  great 


252  THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY    Chap.  VIII 

tragedies,  the  fourth  that  of  'the  romantic  plays,  which 
are  at  once  grave  and  glad,  serene  and  beautiful  poems'. 
He  has  a  corresponding  'impression*  of  changes  in  diction. 

In  the  earliest  plays  the  language  is  sometimes  as  it  were  a  dress 
put  upon  the  thought — a  dress  ornamented  with  superfluous  carej 
the  idea  is  at  times  hardly  sufficient  to  fil!  out  the  language  in  which 
it  is  put;  in  the  middle  plays  (Julius  Caesar  serves  as  an  example) 
there  seems  a  perfect  balance  and  equality  between  the  thought  and 
its  expression.  In  the  latest  plays  this  balance  is  disturbed  by  the 
preponderance  or  excess  of  the  ideas  over  the  means  of  giving  them 
utterance.  The  sentences  are  close-packed;  'there  are  rapid  and 
abrupt  turnings  of  thought,  so  quick  that  language  can  hardly  follow 
fast  enough;  impatient  activity  of  intellect  and  fancy,  which,  having 
once  disclosed  an  idea,  cannot  wait  to  work  it  orderly  out';  'the 
language  is  sometimes  alive  with  imagery'.1 

Of  course  Professor  Dowden  has  a  great  deal  more  to  say 
about  Shakespeare's  mental  and  stylistic  history  than  this; 
I  have  only  given  so  much  as  I  think  can  be  justified  from 
a  grouping  of  the  plays  on  external  evidence  alone.  A  full 
literary  and  psychological  analysis  can  only  follow  and  not 
precede  the  establishment  of  a  chronology.  And  in  the 
meantime  we  are  bound  to  a  circular  process.  A  pre- 
liminary dating  sets  up  impressions  of  temper  and  style, 
and  the  definition  of  these  helps  to  elaborate  the  dating. 
This  is  inevitable,  once  we  depart  from  the  external  evi- 
dence. The  chronology  can  only  become  a  complex  hypo- 
thesis, pieced  together  from  materials  not  in  themselves 
conclusive,  and  depending  for  its  acceptance  on  the  success 
with  which  it  combines  convergent  and  reconciles  con- 
flicting probabilities.  General  impressions,  such  as  Pro- 
fessor Dowden  formulates,  make  it  at  once  possible  to  give 
some  expansion  to  the  groups  already  realized.  Two 
Gentlemen  of  Verona  finds  its  natural  affinities  with  the 
experimental  plays,  King  John  with  the  later  histories,  All  'j 
Well  That  Ends  Well  with  Measure  for  Measure^  Coriolanus 

1  Dowden,  Shakespeare  Primer,  37,  mances  too,  the  intricate  weaving  of 

47.  My  own  feeling  is  that  the  balance  clauses  is  a  closely  fitting  vesture  for 

of  thought  and  expression  is  recovered  the  involutions  and  qualifications  of 

in  the  magnificent  phrasing  of  Antony  the  ideas. 
and  Cleopatra\  and  that  in  the  ro- 


Chap.  VIII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY  253 

and  Timon  of  Athens  with  the  Jacobean  tragedies,  Pericles 
with  the  romances.  Merchant  of  Venice  and  Much  Ado  About 
Nothing  approximate,  perhaps  rather  less  closely,  to  the 
joyous  comedies. 

Obviously  the  mere  grouping  of  plays  is  only  the  first 
stage  of  the  chronological  problem.  There  remain  the 
more  difficult  tasks  of  determining  an  order  of  succession 
within  the  groups  and  between  the  members  of  over- 
lapping groups,  and  of  fitting  this  order  into  the  time 
allowed  by  the  span  of  Shakespeare's  dramatic  career. 
Here  it  is  legitimate  to  make  some  cautious  use  of  minor 
topical  allusions  and  echoes  forwards  and  backwards, 
which  were  rejected  as  not  sufficiently  convincing  to  fur- 
nish primary  evidence.  An  attempt  is  made  to  assemble 
these,  play  by  play,  elsewhere.1  The  cumulative  results 
can  at  the  most  only  support  conclusions  of  higher  or 
lower  degrees  of  probability.  The  main  effort  ot  recent 
scholarship  has  been  to  supplement  external  evidence  by 
a  closer  analysis  of  style,  and  to  establish  chronological 
'tests'  analogous  to  those  which  have  already  been  dis- 
cussed as  determinative  of  authorship.2  The  outcome  is 
not  without  value,  although  a  doubt  must  be  expressed  at 
the  outset  whether  it  is  ever  possible  to  determine  an  order 
for  work  of  more  or  less  level  date  upon  stylistic  considera- 
tions alone.  The  style  of  every  writer  has  its  intelligible 
development,  no  doubt.  But  it  is  not  always  a  matter  of 
smooth  progression.  Subject-matter  has  its  reaction  upon 
style.  During  all  the  first  half  of  Shakespeare's  career,  he 
moves  more  freely  in  comedy  than  in  history.  Moreover, 
allowance  has  to  be  made  for  the  influence  of  moods  and 
for  deliberate  experiment.  The  resultant  leaps  forward 
and  set-backs  become  apparent  when  a  chronological  order 
is  already  known,  but  may  be  very  misleading  as  material 
from  which  to  reconstruct  one.  Certainly  particular 
aspects  of  style  can  be  singled  out  and  studied  in  isolation, 
and  by  such  a  process  the  general  impression  of  charac- 
teristic style  and  of  its  phases  is  naturally  both  strengthened 
and  refined.  There  is  the  aspect  of  structure,  for  example, 

'  Cf.  ch.  ix.  *'  Cf.  p.  220. 


254  THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY    CHap.VIII 

in  the  types  of  character  employed  and  the  choice  of 
dramatic  situations.  One  may  note  that  in  the  earlier  plays 
comic  relief  is  often  afforded  by  the  use  of  a  lout  and  that 
in  the  later  plays  a  court  fool  takes  his  place;  or  again 
that  a  rather  artificial  balancing  between  pairs  of  young 
men  or  young  women  tends  to  disappear  after  the  experi- 
mental stage.  On  the  other  hand,  such  features  are  not 
always  purely  stylistic;  they  depend  in  part  on  the  nature 
of  the  story  adapted  for  the  plot,  and  probably  in  part  also 
on  the  succession  of  actors  available.  Nor  are  they  all 
significant  of  period.  The  favourite  device  of  concealed 
identity  runs  through  the  plays  from  beginning  to  end, 
One  may  take,  again,  Shakespeare's  imagery,  and  compare 
its  range  at  different  periods.  No  doubt  similes  and  meta- 
phors from  country  sights  and  sounds  prevail  in  his  earliest 
and  perhaps  his  latest  plays  and  those  from  urban  life  in 
his  middle  plays,  although  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
the  unconscious  memory  is  a  reservoir,  giving  up  from  its 
store  things  both  new  and  old.  There  are  aspects  of  dic- 
tion too,  to  be  observed;  an  early  habit  of  ringing  the 
changes  upon  some  particular  word,  a  later  habit  of  coin- 
ing new  words,  and  so  forth.  All  such  investigations  make 
for  a  closer  and  more  confident  grouping  of  plays,  but  they 
do  not  really  help  us  to  get  beyond  the  grouping. 

I  do  not  think  that  anything  different  can  be  said  of  the 
particular  features  of  style  out  of  which  it  has  in  fact  been 
attempted  to  construct  'tests'.  Of  these  there  are  three: 
parallels,  vocabulary,  metre.  The  parallel  test  is  the  inven- 
tion of  the  late  Professor  Conrad,1  He  proposed  to  deter- 
mine the  time-relation  of  plays,  not  on  the  basis  of 
conspicuous  parallels,  but  by  enumerating  all  the  parallels,- 
both  of  thought  and  sentiment,  which  he  regarded  as  the 
more  significant,  and  of  verbal  expression,  between  each 
pair  of  plays,  and  forging  a  chronological  chain  in  which 
each  play  would  be  linked  on  either  side  with  those  to 
which  its  parallels  were  most  frequent.  Professor  Conrad, 
so  far  as  I  know,  never  published  his  full  enumeration. 
A  sample  prepared  for  Twelfth  Night  was  very  far  from 

.  i.  232. 


Chap.  VIII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY  255 

complete.1  And  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  completeness 
could  be  secured.  Verbal  parallels  can  no  doubt  be  traced 
by  the  patient  exploitation  of  a  concordance.  But  what 
scholar  can  claim  the  gifts  of  observation  and  memory 
required  to  assemble  out  of  thirty-six  plays  all  the  parallels 
of  thought  and  sentiment  for  which  verbal  clues  are  lack- 
ing ?  Even  if  an  exhaustive  enumeration  were  available, 
it  could  not  be  stated  in  statistical  terms.  The  units  would 
not  be  convertible  counters.  They  might  be  anything 
from  mere  repetitions  of  commonplaces  to  significant  pas- 
sages pointing  to  some  kind  of  association  of  ideas  between 
the  passages  concerned.  There  is  no  valid  criterion  for 
demarcation  of  the  two  categories.  Moreover,  when  an 
association  of  ideas  exists,  it  may  be  due  to  some  other 
cause  than  a  common  date  of  origin.  It  may  arise  from 
a  similarity  of  situation,  or  a  revival  may  have  recalled  old 
work  to  Shakespeare's  mind.  Broadly  speaking,  it  is 
probably  true  that  parallels  are  most  frequent  between 
contemporaneous  plays.  But  this,  again,  does  not  take  us 
beyond  grouping.  To  some  extent  the  same  criticisms 
apply  to  Professor  Sarrazin's  vocabulary  test;  but  not 
wholly,  because  recurrent  words  are  much  more  nearly 
convertible  counters  than  parallels  of  thought  and  phrase, 
and  Professor  Sarrazin  limits  his  field  to  what  he  calls 
'dislegomena'  and  'trislegomena',  that  is,  words  only  used 
twice  or  thrice  by  Shakespeare.2  In  other  respects  his 
method  is  much  like  Professor  Conrad's.  The  words  listed 
include  many  rare  or  invented  words,  and  also  some  which 
are  not  unusual,  and  the  incidence  of  which  is  determined 
by  the  need  for  expressing  the  ideas  which  they  connote. 
The  latter  are  hardly  significant.  Once  more,  the  recur- 
rences are  commonest  in  plays  of  more  or  less  the  same 
date,  although  by  no  means  confined  to  these.  And  once 
more  we  do  not  get  beyond  grouping* 

A  great  deal  of  work  has  been  done  upon  what  are 
roughly  called  Verse'  or  'metrical'  tests.  Differences  in 
the  handling  of  blank  verse  afford  units  which  readily 

1  y.  xxxi.  177;  cf.  Sarrazin's  criti-          a  y.  xxxiii.  120$  xxxiv.  119. 
cism  in  J.  xxxii.  163. 


256  THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY    Chap.  VIII 

lend  themselves  to  statistical  treatment.  Variations  in  the 
length  of  lines,  in  the  number  of  syllables  carried  by  lines, 
in  the  value  given  to  unstressed  vowels,  in  the  distribution 
of  stresses  and  pauses,  can  all  be  enumerated  and  tabu- 
lated.1 The  extent  of  departure  from  the  blank  verse  form 
by  the  introduction  of  prose  and  rhyme  can  also  be 
measured.  An  intermixture  of  mediums  is  characteristic 
of  Shakespeare  from  an  early  stage.  Only  about  two-thirds 
of  the  hundred  thousand  lines  or  so  occupied  by  the  plays 
are  in  blank  verse.  The  modification  of  blank  verse  itself 
is  on  the  whole  progressive.  It  culminates  in  the  Jacobean 
tragedies,  and  in  some  of  the  more  excited  scenes  of  these, 
where  transitions  between  prose  and  verse  are  also  com- 
mon, the  blank  verse  norm  hardly  remains  recognizable. 
These  metrical  phenomena  first  attracted  attention  in  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  when  Richard  Roderick 
noted  the  frequency  of  inverted  first-foot  stresses  and 
'redundant*  final  syllables  as  characteristic  of  Henry  VIII. 
Little  use  of  them  was  made  as  a  guide  to  chronology  by 
Malone,  except  that  he  took  a  high  proportion  of  rhyme 
as  being  a  sign  of  early  work.2  The  study  was  resumed 
nearly  a  hundred  years  after  its  initiation,  notably  in  an 
essay  by  Charles  Bathurst,  in  which  the  gradual  changes 
in  Shakespeare's  manner,  as  regards  both  the  employment 
of  redundant  final  syllables  and  the  coincidence  of  rhyth- 
mical pauses  with  line-endings,  were  well  brought  out. 
Much  of  the  earliest  work  of  the  New  Shakspere  Society 
was  also  devoted  to  the  subject.  The  chief  contributor  was 
F.  G.  Fleay.  He  was  primarily  concerned  with  'tests'  of 
authorship  rather  than  of  chronology.  But  he  prepared  a 
table,  based  upon  the  Globe  text,  in  which  he  enumerated 
for  each  play  the  total  lines,  those  of  blank  verse,  prose, 
and  rhyme,  the  abnormally  short  and  long  lines,  and  the 
redundant  syllables,  which  he  called  'double  endings'. 
This  was  reprinted,  with  little  alteration,  in  his  Shake- 
speare  Manual  of  1876.  Such  a  table,  accurately  done, 
would  have  been  of  great  value  as  a  basis  for  statistical 

1  I  give  what  seem  to  me  the  most         *  Far.  ii.  3*7. 
useful  tables  in  Appendix  H. 


Chap.  VIII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY  257 

analysis.  Unfortunately  Fleay's  was  extremely  inaccurate, 
as  may  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  his  totals  often  do  not 
add  up  to  anything  like  the  Globe  lines  and  sometimes 
diverge  to  the  extent  of  hundreds.  It  is  not  very  creditable 
to  modern  scholarship  that  these  figures  have  been  con- 
stantly reproduced  down  to  Professor  Tucker  Brooke's 
Shakespeare  of  Stratford  in  1926.  Fleay  in  fact  revised 
them,  and  printed  new  tables  in  C.  M.  Ingleby's  Shake- 
speare the  Man  and  the  Book  of  1 8  8 1  .  Here  he  made  some 
slight  alterations  in  the  basis,  gave  details  for  each  scene, 
as  weir  as  for  each  play,  and  claimed  to  have  'detected 
several  errors'  in  the  earlier  version.  The  new  figures  are, 
however,  still  very  far  from  accurate.1  Other  students,  both 
English  and  German,  now  took  up  the  investigation,  and 
made  an  advance  upon  Fleay's  methods  by  relating  their 
results  in  percentage  form  to  the  total  number  of  blank- 
verse  lines  in  each  play,  and  thereby  making  a  statistical 
comparison  between  play  and  play  possible.  Professor 
K5nig,  for  example,  thus  dealt  with  several  'tests'  in  his 
Der  Vers  in  Skaksperes  Dramen  of  1888.  In  more  recent 
years  a  number  of  new  tests  have  been  worked  out  by 
Professor  Conrad.  Neither  of  these  scholars  gives  the 
counts  from  which  his  tables  of  proportions  are  calculated, 
and  Professor  Conrad's  tables  ao  not  cover  all  the  plays. 
Counts  are  supplied,  however,  in  the  dissertations,  written 
under  his  influence,  of  Dr.  Kerrl  on  King  Juhn  and  Julius 
Caesar  and  of  Dr.Norpothon  Two  Gentlemen  o/Perona,znd 
for  important  features  the  lines  counted  are  cited  and  some- 
times even  quoted.  This  is,  of  course,  the  better  method, 
as  it  facilitates  checking,  and  makes  it  feasible  to  estimate 
the  personal  equation  of  the  investigator. 

Some  survey  of  the  ground  covered  and  of  the  diffi- 
culties to  be  faced  may  be  attempted.  There  are  no  per- 
centage tables  for  the  distribution  of  prose,  and  probably 
none  would  be  helpful.  It  is  used  throughout  the  plays, 
except  in  two  or  three  of  the  histories,  and  appears  to  have 
no  chronological  significance.  If  it  is  commonest  in  the 
second  period,  the  reason  is  that  comedies,  to  which  it  is 

1  Cf.  vol.  ii,  p.  406. 

3X42.1  o 


258  THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY    Chap.  VIII 

particularly  appropriate,  then  come  most  thickly.  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor  is  almost  entirely,  and  2  Henry  IP \  Much 
Ado  About  Nothing,  As  Tou  Like  It,  Twelfth  Night,  and 
All 's  Well  That  Ends  Well  are  predominantly,  in  prose. 
Hamlet  has  a  great  deal;  Julius  Caesar \  not  far  removed  in 
date,  less  than  almost  any  other  play.  King  Lear,  Coriolanus, 
and  Winter's  Tale  have  much  more  than  their  respective 
neighbours  Macbeth,  Antony  and  Cleopatra,  and  the  Tem- 
pest. In  scenes  where  prose  and  verse  are  mingled,  it  is 
not  always  easy  to  say  whether  a  short  sentence. should  be 
treated  as  prose  or  truncated  verse,  or  whether  a  rhythmic 
phrase  in  a  prose  environment  is  intended  to  be  metrical 
or  not.1  Counts  will  differ  according  to  the  judgement  of 
the  counters  on  these  points.  For  rhyme,  Professor  Konig 
gives  percentages  of  rhymed  decasyllabic  lines  to  all  lines, 
and  Professor  Conrad  percentages  of  all  rhymed  lines  to 
blank-verse  lines.  Probably  alternate  rhymes  and  certainly 
sonnets,  songs,  other  short  rhymes,  and  doggerel  rhymes 
should  be  kept  apart  from  the  ordinary  heroic  couplets, 
since  they  are  generally  introduced  for  special  purposes. 
Professor  Heuser  gives  independent  figures  for  heroic 
couplets.  Doggerel,  except  for  a  few  lines,  some  of  which 
may  be  of  doubtful  authenticity,  is  only  found  in  quite 
early  plays.  From  the  point  of  view  of  chronology,  con- 
tinuous passages  of  rhymed  dialogue  should  be  distin- 
guished from  sporadic  couplets.  The  former  rarely  appear 
after  Twelfth  Night,  and  as  a  rule  with  some  deliberate 
intention,  such  as  the  enunciation  of  sententious  comment 
by  choric  elders.  The  latter  are  used  throughout,  but  with 
diminishing  frequency  towards  the  end,  as  'tags'  to  clinch 
long  or  significant  speeches,  or  the  final  speeches  of  scenes. 
Here  again  counts  may  differ  through  uncertainty  as  to 
whether  sporadic  rhymes  are  intended  as  such,  or  are 
merely  accidental. 

Chronologically,  the  departures  from  blank  verse  are  of 
less  importance  than  the  variations  within  the  blank-verse 
cadre  itself.  ^And  among  these  again  there  is  not  much  to 
be  said  about  the  abnormally  short  or  long  lines.  Like  all 

Cf.p.233. 


Chap.  VIII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY  259 

irregularities,  they  tend  to  increase,  and  reach  a  maximum 
in  the  Jacobean  tragedies.  But  there  is  no  even  progres- 
sion* Richard  III  and  Richard  II  alike  show  a  con- 
siderable excess  of  both  over  many  plays  which  follow 
them.  The  actual  numbers  have  probably  been  perverted 
both  by  printers'  errors  and  by  the  editorial  rearrangement 
of  lines,  and  some  at  least  of  the  short  lines  may  be  the 
result  of  cuts.1  Some  writers  distinguish  between  Alex- 
andrines with  six  marked  stresses  and  other  lines  which 
they  treat  as  five-foot  lines  carrying  two  redundant  sylla- 
bles after  the  final  feet.  This  seems  to  me  unnecessary, 
since  an  ordinary  five-footer  often  has  no  marked  stress 
in  the  final  foot.  Professor  Conrad  has  a  percentage  table 
for  all  six-footers,  but  the  smallness  of  the  total  number 
deprives  it  of  value.2  In  calculating, metrical  variations 
generally,  six-footers  are  best  grouped  with  five-footers  as 
normal  blank  verse. 

Variations  of  stress  have  not  so  far  received  much  study. 
The  investigation  is  a  difficult  one,  because  there  is  often 
much  uncertainty  as  to  where  stress  is  intended  to  fall. 
The  stress  in  disyllabic  words  and  at  least  the  main  stress 
in  longer  words  is  fairly  fixed,  although  in  some  words  the 
Elizabethan  was  not  quite  the  same  as  the  modern  usage. 
But  monosyllables  can  be  stressed  or  unstressed,  according 
to  a  rhythmic  intention.  Actually,  of  course,  there  are 
degrees  of  stress,  and  upon  this  much  of  the  finer  modula- 
tion of  verse  depends.  But  for  metrical  analysis,  one  can 
hardly  get  beyond  the  distinction  of  relatively  stressed  and 
relatively  unstressed  syllables.  The  normal  iambic  line 
consists  of  five  feet,  in  each  of  which  an  unstressed  is  fol- 
lowed by  a  stressed  syllable.  A  continuous  succession  of 
such  lines  is  rare  in  Shakespeare.  There  are  many  'pyrrhic' 
feet  in  which  both  syllables  are  unstressed,  and  some 
'spondaic'  in  which  both  are  stressed.  Here  we  get  level 
stress.  There  are  also  'trochaic*  feet,  in  which  the  stressed 
syllable  precedes  the  unstressed  syllable,  instead  of  fol- 
lowing it.  Here  we  get  inverted  stress.  Shakespeare  made 
progressive  use  of  level  stress,  and  up  to  the  end  of  the 

1  Cf.  p.  229.  *  Conrad,  Maebet&>  xxviiij  cf.  p.  266. 

s  2 


260  THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY    Chap.  VIII 

tragedies  of  inverted  stress,  as  part  of  a  general  instinct 
to  vary  the  iambic  norm.  Inverted  stress  is  already  fre- 
quent in  Marlowe,  chiefly  in  the  first  feet  of  lines,  since 
trochees  come  most  naturally  after  pauses.  Shakespeare, 
as  naturally,  introduced  them  after  his  mid-line  pauses, 
and  occasionally  elsewhere,  although  fifth-foot  trochees 
remain  exceptional  throughout.  Professor  Conrad  gives 
some  figures  as  to  these  and  as  to  trochees  after  the  mid- 
line  pause,  and  also  as  to  what  he  calls  'Doppeljamben'.1 
But  these  are  no  more  than  particular  cases  of  level  stress, 
in  which  a  pyrrhic  is  followed  by  a  spondee.  I  do  not 
attach  much  weight  to  these  figures,  since  I  find  myself 
constantly  at  variance  with  the  scansion  of  foreign  ob- 
servers and  doubt  whether  they  fully  appreciate  the  inci- 
dence of  English  stress.  In  reading  Shakespeare,  I  feel 
that  there  is  a  great  deal  of  level  stress,  and  that  in  many 
lines  there  are  very  few  strong  stresses.  These  features 
may  vary  at  different  periods,  but  the  subject  still  wants 
working  out.  How  far  the  actors  emphasized  stress,  where 
it  was  optional,  we  cannot  say.  Polonius  commended  the 
'good  accent*  of  a  highly  stressed  speech;  but  he  was  no 
judged 

The  most  easily  recognized  type  of  syllabic  variation  is 
the  use  of  the  'redundant*  final  syllables  demonstrated  by 
Bathurst.  They  make  what  are  called  'feminine*  or 
'double*  or  'hendecasyllabic*  endings.  As  a  rule  they  are 
the  unstressed  final  syllables  of  words,  but  include  an 
increasing  number  of  personal  pronouns  and  even  other 
unstressed  monosyllables,  Fletcher  often  employs  stressed 
monosyllables,  but  Shakespeare  very  rarely.  Percentage 
tables  are  given  by  Professors  Kdnig,  Hertzberg,  and 
Conrad.  Their  results  do  not  quite  agree.  Professor 
K6nig  includes  not  only  the  ordinary  double  endings, 
which  he  calls  'klingende*,  but  also,  as  'gleitende',  the 
final  feet  of  those  six-foot  lines,  which  do  not  form  regular 
Alexandrines.  And  he  excludes  not  only  final  syllables  in 
-ed±  -est)  and  -ear,  where  these  are  capable  of  elision,  but 
also  those  of  a  number  of  words,  such  as  'heaven*,  'devil', 

1  C6nrad,  Macbeth^  mx,  xxxv.  *  Ham.  ii.  2.  489. 


Chap.  VIII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY  261 

'spirit',  'prayer',  'fire',  'hour',  'power',  and  the  like,  which 
can  be  pronounced  either  as  monosyllables  or  disyllables. 
This  he  does  on  the  ground  that  the  monosyllabic  pro- 
nunciation is  predominant,  although  not  invariable,  when 
such  a  word  comes  in  the  middle  of  a  line.    My  own  feel- 
ing is  that  at  the  end  of  a  line,  where  the  line-break  leaves 
room  for  an  open  utterance,  the  effect  is  disyllabic.    One 
cannot  here,  I  think,  rely  upon  differences  of  spelling  as 
a  guide,  since  forms  in  -ier^  -ire  and  in  -ower,  -owre  rhyme 
together  in  the  poems.1  On  the  other  hand,  I  do  not  feel 
that  word-endings  in  -ton  and  -ious,  although  these  are  also 
sometimes  treated  as  disyllabic  in  the  mid-verse  at  any 
rate  of  the  earlier  plays,  make  double  endings.   And  so 
too  with  -ed  iand  -est.   But  clearly  there  is  the  possibility 
of  divergent  computations.  Double  endings  are  not  always 
the  result  of  an  instinct  for  metrical  variation.  Sometimes 
they  are  due  to  the  need  for  accommodating  a  refractory 
personal  name  within  a  line.  Sometimes  they  emphasize 
a  ringing  of  the  changes  upon  words.  The  large  number 
of  them  in  King  John,  i.  I,  as  compared  with  the  rest  of 
the  play,  comes  from  the  recurrence  of  'father',  'mother', 
and  'brother'.    And  it  is  curious  to  notice  how  often 
'money'  and  'dinner*  make  double  endings  in  the  Comedy 
of  Errors.    Moreover,  double  endings  are  not  felt  by 
Shakespeare  to  be  equally  appropriate  to  all  kinds  of 
subject-matter.   They  are  more  frequent  both  in  excited 
dialogue  and  soliloquy  and  in  the  give  and  take  of  social 
conversation,  than  in  meditative  or  imaginative  passages, 
or  in  (continuous  narrative,  or  in  grave  oratory.2  Redun- 
dant-syllables also  occur  before  a  mid-line  pause,  and 
Professor  Conrad  gives  a  percentage  table  for  these;  but 
they  never  become  numerous.3    More  important  is  the 
'resolution'  of  feet  by  the  insertion  of  additional  unstressed 
syllables,  whereby  iambs  become  anapaests  and  trochees 
dactyls.  These  trisyllabic  feet  add  much  to  the  grace  and 
flexibility  of  blank-verse  rhythm,  and  a  careful  enumera- 

1  W.  Victor,  Shakespeare**  Prwitm-      (1874),  75>  Mayor,  174;  D.  L.  Cham- 
ciation,  L  154,  264.  bers,  44. 

*  Cf.  E,  Abbott  in  N.S.S.  Trans.         3  Conrad,  Macbeth,  xxvii. 


262  THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY    Chap.  VIII 

tion  would  probably  show  that  Shakespeare  made  a  pro- 
gressive and  at  times  considerable  use  of  them.  Here, 
too.  Professor  Conrad  has  a  table,  for  anapaests  alone, 
which  are  by  far  the  greater  number.1  I  mistrust  it,  be- 
cause foreign  students  have  a  habit  of  treating  as  'slurred* 
or  elided  many  syllables  which  I  should  certainly  sound, 
although  lightly.  The  proportion  of  feet  counted  as  tri- 
syllabic is  thus  much  reduced. 

Variations  in  stresses  and  syllables  affect  the  internal 
structure  of  lines.  But  the  linking  of  line  to  line  is  also 
capable  of  variation.  In  the  blank  verse  which  Shake- 
speare inherited,  the  pauses  almost  invariably  coincided 
with  breaks  between  the  lines.  It  was  'end-stopped'  verse. 
There  was  a  juxtaposition  of  clauses,  principal  and  sub- 
ordinate, each  occupying  its  full  line,  and  it  was  by  a  suc- 
cession of  such  lines  that  Marlowe  built  up  his  rolling 
periods.  Shakespeare  escaped  from  the  tyranny  of  the 
'drumming  decasyllabon'  by  altering  the  incidence  of 
pausation  and  introducing  shorter  clauses;  and  this  was 
the  main  factor  in  the  conversion  of  blank  verse  into  a 
plastic  medium,  which  both  came  nearer  to  the  run  of 
ordinary  speech,  and  furnished  a  sensitive  instrument  for 
registering  the  rise  and  fall  of  emotion  and  following  the 
turns  of  an  intricate  thought.  The  sense,  in  Milton's 
words,  was  now  Variously  drawn  out  from  one  line  to 
another*.  Statements  that  Shakespeare  substituted  the 
verse  paragraph  or  the  rhythmic  phrase  for  the  line  as 
the  unit  of  composition  require  some  qualification.  Just 
as  the  iambic  norm  of  the  individual  line  remains  recog- 
nizable through  the  overlay  of  resolved  feet  and  level  or 
inverted  stresses,  so  the  recurrence  of  equivalent  units, 
while  modified  by  the  manipulation  of  pauses,  is  not  for- 
gotten. Such  recurrence  is  of  the  essence  of  verse'.  The 
form  still  controls  the  patterns  which  it  comes  to  support. 
An  obvious  element  in  pause-variation  is  a  reduction  in 
the  number  of  end-stopped  lines.  There  are  overflows  of 
sense  from  one  line  to  another.  Some  scholars  speak  of 
fr,  or  of  *run-on*  or  offene  lines.  Where  over- 

1  Conrad,  Macbeth,  anrix. 


Chap.  VIII     THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY  263 

flows  occur,  there  can  be  no  marked  pause  at  the  breaks 
between  the  lines.  I  agree  with  Dr.  Bradley  that  a  slight 
impression  of  pause  always  survives,  but  it  is  reduced 
to  a  minimum.  The  definition  and  valuation  of  overflows 
have  been  the  subject  of  many  discussions,  and  it  cannot 
be  said  that  there  is  any  agreed  basis.  It  is  usually  accepted 
that  to  constitute  an  overflow  the  sense  of  a  single  clause 
and  the  voice  must  run  on  together.  But  here  are  involved 
both  the  objective  criterion  of  grammar,  which  analyses  the 
sense,  and  the  subjective  criterion  of  elocutionary  feeling, 
which  rules  the  voice,  is  largely  individual,  and  sometimes 
disregards  grammar.  Attempts  have  been  made  to  rely  for 
statistical  purposes  wholly  upon  the  objective  or  wholly 
upon  the  subjective  criterion.  I  think  that  the  elocutionary 
feeling  must  have  the  last  word.  But  there  is  clearly  a  large 
class  of  necessary  overflows,  in  which  the  voice  and  the 
sense  can  hardly  help  coinciding.  They  occur  when  the 
line-break  directly  divides  parts  of  a  single  clause  placed 
in  their  logical  order;  a  subject  and  the  verb  of  its  pre- 
dicate, the  elements  of  a  compound  subject,  a  noun  and 
its  epithet  adjective,  a  preposition  and  the  noun  it  pre- 
cedes, a  verb  and  its  direct  or  indirect  objective,  an  auxi- 
liary and  a  main  verb,  a  relative  or  conjunction  and  the 
rest  of  the  subordinate  clause  which  it  introduces.  There 
are  other  cases  in  which  there  is  still  some  running-on  of 
the  sense  and  no  room  for  a  marked  pause,  but  in  which 
more  account  may  be  taken  of  the  line-break.  An  inver- 
sion of  order  diminishes  the  connexion  between  the 
divided  parts  of  the  clause.  Or  a  vocative  or  short  ad- 
verbial or  adjectival  qualification  intervenes  between  one 
of  these  and  the  break.  Or  what  is  divided  oflF  may  itself 
be  such  a  qualification.  Or  a  dependent  noun  clause  may 
be  divided  from  its  governing  verb.  Or  the  division  maj 
come  between  co-ordinate  words  occupying  the  same  posi- 
tion in  the  clause.  The  treatment  of  such  casqs  as  over- 
flows is  largely  optional.  It  is  a  matter  of  degree.  The 
length  of  the  divided-oflF  member  becomes  a  factor.  Over- 
flow is  encouraged  by  a  mid-line  pause  shortly  before  the 
break  and  discouraged  by  a  stress  on  the  final  syllable.  In 


264  THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY    Chap.  VIII 

the  following  passage  from  the  Tempest^  I  have  marked 
with  one  and  two  asterisks  the  lines  in  which  overflow 
seems  to  me  respectively  optional  and  necessary,  and  of 
the  former,  in  a  solemn  invocation  I  should  only  be  sure  of 
taking  as  overflows  the  second,  fourth,  eleventh,  twelfth, 
and  fourteenth,  should  reject  the  third  and  seventeenth, 
and  should  feel  doubtful  about  the  seventh,  thirteenth,  and 
sixteenth.  I  might,  indeed,  accept  them  at  one  reading 
and  reject  them  at  another.1 

Ye  elves  of  hills,  brooks,  standing  lakes  and  groves, 

*  And  ye  that  on  the  sands  with  printless  foot 

*  Do  chase  the  ebbing  Neptune  and  do  fly  him 

*  When  he  comes  bade;  you  demi-puppets  that 
By  moonshine  do  the  green  sour  ringlets  make, 

**  Whereof  the  ewe  not  bites,  and  you  whose  pastime    ' 

*  Is  to  make  midnight  mushrooms,  that  rejoice 
To  hear  the  solemn  curfew;  by  whose  aid, 

**  Weak  masters  though  ye  be,  I  have  bedimmed 
The  noontide  sun,  calTd  forth  the  mutinous  winds, 
And  'twixt  the  green  sea  and  the  azured  vault 
Set  roaring  war:  to  the  dread  rattling  thunder 
Have  I  gjven  fire  and  rifted  Jove's  stout  oak 
With  his  own  bolt;  the  strong-based  promontory 
Have  I  made  shake  and  by  the  spurs  pluck'd  up 
The  pine  and  cedar:  graves  at  my  command 
Have  waked  their  sleepers,  oped,  and  let  *em  forth 
By  my  so  potent  art 

I  believe  that  my  conception  of  an  overflow  and  certainly 
of  a  necessary  overflow  is  more  restricted  than  those  upon 
which  Professors  Kdnig  and  Conrad  have  based  tables. 
Professor  Conrad's  percentages  are  the  lower  of  the  two. 
I  find  that  Professor  D.  L.  Chambers  and  Dr.  Bradley 
also  regard  Professor  Kfoig's  net  as  cast  too  wide.  He 
claims,  however,  only  to  include  schrofe  overflows,  where 
the  metrical  pause  is  overridden,  and  not  milde  ones, 
where  some  account  is  taken  of  it.  Professor  Conrad's 
kichte  overflows  seem  intended  to  be  the  equivalent  of 
Professor  Kdnig's  schnffe*  and  his  schwtre  overflows  the 

r.  x.  35-50. 


Chap.  VIII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY  265 

equivalent  of  the  'light'  and  'weak'  endings  studied  by 
Professor  J.  K.  Ingram.  These  are  unstressed  final  mono- 
syllables. The  light  endings,  upon  which  Professor  In- 
gram thinks  that  the  voice  can  very  slightly  dwell,  are 
mainly  pronouns  and  auxiliaries.  The  weak  endings,  which 
he  thinks  essentially  proclitic,  are  prepositions  and  con- 
junctions. There  are  few  of  either  class,  and  the  weak 
endings  only  appear  in  the  latest  plays.  Both  represent, 
I  think,  nothing  more  than  extreme  cases  of  necessary 
overflows.  A  calculation  of  overflows  is  not  by  itself  a 
complete  measure  of  pause-variation.  There  are  some  of 
them,  even  necessary  overflows,  in  pre-Shakespearean 
blank  verse.  But  they  do  not  much  affect  the  character 
of  the  rhythm,  because  when  the  sense  passes  the  line- 
break,  it  generally  runs  on,  not  to  a  mid-line  pause,  but 
to  the  end  of  the  next  line.  Shakespeare's  mid-line  pauses 
grow  in  number.  To  the  end  there  are  more  of  them  in 
broken  dialogue,  than  in  long  speeches.  Their  incidence 
is  greatest  after  the  second  and  third  feet.  Pauses  after 
the  first  or  before  the  fifth  foot,  or  even  in  the  middle  of 
these,  are  a  comparatively  late  feature.  One  aspect  of  the 
development  is  a  tendency  to  end  a  speech  in  mid-line. 
Professors  Pulling  and  K6nig  have  tables  for  such  end- 
ings, relating  their  percentages  to  the  number  of  speeches, 
of  which  Professor  Pulling  gives  a  count.  Professor  Con- 
rad's table  for  divided  lines  is  not  on  the  same  basis,  since 
the  line  in  which  a  speech  ends  is  often  not  taken  up  by 
the  next  speaker,  but  remains  short.  There  has  not  been 
much  systematic  study  of  internal  mid-line  pauses,  although 
their  importance  was  long  ago  pointed  out  by  Sped- 
ding.1  Drs.  Kerrl  and  Norpoth  count  the  pauses  which 
require  more  than  a  comma  to  punctuate  them  in  the 
special  plays  they  study,  and  relate  those  in  mid-line  to 
the  total  number.  Possibly  a  table  showing  the  proportion 
of  lines  containing  such  strong  pauses  to  the  total  lines 
would  be  a  better  guide.  I  have  attempted  to  construct 
a  rough  one.2  The  distribution  of  lighter  pauses,  of 
course,  also  affects  the  rhythm,  but  these  it  is  less  easy 

.  Trans.  (1874),  26.  *  App.  H,  Tahk  V, 


266  THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY    Chap.  VIII 

to  be  sure  of.  In  any  case  one  is  dependent  upon  the 
punctuation  of  modern  editors,  which  may  not  always 
faithfully  represent  Shakespeare's  intention.1 

Professor  Conrad  has  a  few  miscellaneous  tables.  One 
of  these  attempts  to  represent  the  proportion  of  irregular 
to  regular  lines;  and  by  an  irregular  line  he  means  one 
which  contains  two  trochees  or  two  of  his  'Doppeljamben', 
or  a  trochee  elsewhere  than  in  the  first  foot  or  after  a  mid- 
line  pause,  or  one  of  the  few  anapaests  he  allows,  or  a  one- 
syllable  foot.  It  is  a  rather  arbitrary  distinction.  Another 
table  is  for  'amphibious  sections',  the  cases  in  which  a 
half-line  serves  both  as  the  end  of  one  full  line  and  the 
beginning  of  the  next.  Others  bear  upon  pronunciation 
rather  than  upon  metre,  and  show  the  gradual  disuse  of 
the  unelided  word-ending  in  -ed.z 

The  verse-tests  are  by  no  means  all  of  equal  value,  and 
much  caution  is  required  in  drawing  inferences  from  them. 
In  the  first  place  the  variations  occur  discontinuously,  and 
the  law  of  averages  must  be  respected.  The  greater  the 
number  of  variations,  and  the  greater  the  number  of 
opportunities  for  variation,  the  more  reliable  an  average 
figure,  such  as  a  percentage,  is  likely  to  be.  In  the  present 
investigation,  the  measure  of  opportunities  for  variation  is 
generally  the  number  of  lines,  sometimes  the  number  of 
speeches,  taken  into  account.  Percentages  for  total  plays 
are  therefore  far  more  comparable  than  those  for  single 
acts;  those  for  individual  scenes  or  shorter  passages  have 
little  meaning,  because  they  do  not  leave  room  for  the 
discontinuities  to  average  out.  Some  passages  in  a  play 
may  show  a  continuous  or  nearly  continuous  series  of 
overflows  or  double  endings;  in  others  there  may  be  none 
over  a  considerable  stretch.  It  is  futile  to  point  out  that 
the  former  show  an  exceptionally  high  percentage  of  the 
variations,  and  to  use  this  as  an  argument  in  favour  of  a 
diversity  of  authorship  or  a  diversity  of  date,  Mr.  Robert- 
son^ handling  of  metrical  evidence  is  much  open  to  this 
criticism.  For  the  same  reason,  one  must  look  with  sus- 
picion upon  the  attempts  of  Professor  Conrad  and  his 

1  Cf.  p.  190.  *  Comad,  Macbeth,  xxviii,  xxx. 


Chap.  VIII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY  267 

followers  to  establish  intervals  between  the  composition 
of  different  acts  of  plays  upon  metrical  grounds,  and  to 
isolate  particular  passages  as  metrically  of  later  date  than 
the  rest.  Even  where  complete  plays  are  in  question,  the 
metrical  tables  are  very  likely  to  be  misleading  as  to  those 
in  which  the  total  amount  of  blank  verse  is  small.  Simi- 
larly, comparative  figures  are  of  little  value,  when  the 
variations  upon  which  they  are  based  are  only  of  rare 
occurrence.  Accident  may  be  too  great  a  factor  in  these 
to  make  averaging  reliable.  Such  are  six-foot  lines,  extra 
syllables  before  mid-line  pauses,  anapaests  as  reckoned  by 
Professor  Conrad,  light  and  weak  endings.  Nor  must 
importance  be  given  to  small  percentage  fluctuations. 
The  Conradist  tables  are  expressed  in  per-mills  instead  of 
j>er-cents.  This  obscures  the  issue.  In  a  play  of  3,000 
lines,  three  occurrences  of  a  variation  make  the  difference  of 
a  whole  unit  in  the  per-millage.  Even  where  percentages 
are  used,  they  should  be  rounded  off,  and  not  calculated 
to  decimals,  which  give  an  appearance  of  scientific  pre- 
cision far  from  justified  by  the  nature  of  the  material. 

A  second  caution  is  that  variations  which  become  part 
of  the  unconscious  or  subconscious  instinct  of  a  writer  are 
more  likely  to  be  significant  of  a  chronological  develop- 
ment than  those  which  involve  deliberation.  Fleay,  like 
Malone,  was  impressed  by  the  abundance  of  rhyme  in 
some  of  the  early  plays,  and  assumed  that  the  proportion 
of  rhyme  was  a  measure  of  earliness.  He  went  so  for  as  to 
make  Midsummer-Night's  Dream  the  first  of  the  comedies, 
and  others  have  given  the  same  position  to  Love's  Labour  fs 
Lost.  But  no  man  can  substitute  rhyming  for  blank-verse 
dialogue  without  realizing  what  he  is  doing,  and  it  is  most 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  at  some  date  Shakespeare  de- 
cided to  make  a  deliberate  experiment  in  lyrical  drama. 
A  very  natural  stimulus  would  be  afforded  by  his  experi- 
ence of  lyrical  work  in  the  narrative  poems.  The  actual 
percentage  of  rhyme  in  the  plays  affected  by  such  an 
experiment  is  of  no  importance.  There  seems  to  have  been 
a  notion  that  rhyme  was  a  characteristic  of  the  pre- 
Shakespearean  drama,  which  Shakespeare  gradually  dis- 


268  THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY    Chap.  VIII 

carded.  It  is  true  that  mid-Elizabethan  popular  plays  were 
written  in  various  forms  of  doggerel.  These,  and  not 
heroic  couplets,  were  the  'iygging  vaines  of  riming  mother 
wits',  which  Marlowe  .repudiated.  There  is  little  use  of 
the  heroic  metre  in  the  plays  of  Shakespeare's  immediate 
predecessors.  Marlowe  has  only  a  few  sporadic  couplets, , 
including  some  curious  ones  in  which  a  line  of  blank  verse 
interrupts  the  rhyme.  Kyd's  Spanish  Tragedy  has  one  con- 
tinuous scene,  and  there  are  some  passages  in  Greene's 
James  IV^  in  Greene  and  Lodge's  Looking-Glass^  and  in 
scenes  of  i  Henry  VI^  which  may  not  be  Shakespeare's. 
There  is  more  in  the  anonymous  Selimus,  and  by  Peele, 
mainly  in  Arraignment  of  Paris.  But  this  is  a  court  play  for 
boys,  and  so,  if  it  is  of  early  date  at  all,  is  the  anonymous 
Maid's  Metamorphosis^  which  only  uses  heroics.  Sub- 
stantially, the  medium  of  Shakespeare's  models  was  blank 
verse.  The  rhyme  of  the  lyric  plays  represents  a  fresh  start 
and  not  a  looking  backwards.  And  it  seems  to  bear  some 
relation  to  a  feature  in  his  use  of  double  endings.  The 
growth  of  these  does  not  follow  a  very  smooth  curve  at  any 
point.  But  it  is  particularly  noticeable  that,  while  he  begins 
with  a  fairly  high  proportion,  there  is  a  marked  drop,  not 
only  for  the  lyric  plays,  but  also  for  King  John  and  I  Henry 
IF \  which  must  follow  them  pretty  closely.  Heroics  them- 
selves, of  course,  have  rare  double  endings.  But  it  looks  as 
if  the  constant  recurrence  of  final  stress,  which  is  normally 
entailed  by  English  rhyme,  had  reacted  upon  the  manner  of 
Shakespeare's  blank  verse.  And  the  sudden  rise  in  the  per- 
centage for  2  Henry  IF  can  only  suggest  that  here  too 
there  is, an  element  of  deliberate  purpose.  Conscious 
variation  of  metre  is  further  illustrated  by  prologues 
and  epilogues,  by  inserted  plays  and  masks,  and  by  the 
characteristic  bombast  of  Pistol.  These  are  meant  to 
contrast  with  the  ordinary  dialogue,  and  should  be  left 
out  of  account  in  computing  the  variations  of  its  blank 
verse. 

JProbably  the  variations  that  most  easily  become  uncon- 
scious are  those  of  pausation.  But  here  a  third  caution 
must  be  observed.  A  test,  to  be  reliable,  must  be  uni- 


Chap.  VIII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY  269 

formly  applied  throughout,  and  this  is  difficult,  unless  it 
is  objective;  rests,  that  is  to  say,  upon  units  which  can  be 
identified  and  enumerated  with  certainty.  But  we  have 
seen  that  the  overflow  test  is  extremely  subjective;  much 
depends  upon  the  personal  equation  of  the  enumerator. 
It  may  be  thought  that  this  does  not  much  matter,  so  long 
as  the  enumerator  is  the  same  throughout,  since  only  one 
personal  equation  can  be  in  question.  It  is  not  really  so. 
Nothing  can  be  more  difficult,  as  any  one  who  has  dealt 
with  large  batches  of  literary  examination  papers  will 
know,  than  to  maintain  a  continuous  subjective  standard 
through  a  long  series  of  qualitative  judgements.  Even 
Rhadamanthus  has  his  moods.  And  there  is  the  effect  of 
environment  to  be  reckoned  with.  The  same  man  may 
very  well  be  impressed  by  an  overflow  in  a  play  com- 
paratively free  from  them,  which  he  would  certainly  pass 
over  where  they  come  more  thickly. 

In  view  of  all  the  uncertainties  attaching  to  the  metrical 
tests,  I  do  not  believe  that  any  one  of  them  or  any  com- 
bination of  them  can  be  taken  as  authoritative  in  deter- 
mining the  succession  of  plays  which  come  near  to  each 
other  in  date;  and  I  have  chiefly  used  them  as  controls 
for  the  indications  of  external  evidence.  In  the  following 
table  I  have  attempted  to  bring  together  the  results  of 
chapter  ix  and  to  fit  them  into  the  facts  of  Shakespeare's 
dramatic  career  as  given  in  chapter  iii.  There  is  much  of 
conjecture,  even  as  regards  the  order,  and  still  more  as 
regards  the  ascriptions  to  particular  years.  These  are  partly 
arranged  to  provide  a  fairly  even  flow  of  production  when 
plague  and  other  inhibitions  did  not  interrupt  it.  It  is  on 
the  whole  more  practicable  to  take  theatrical  seasons, 
roughly  from  early  autumn  to  the  following  summer,  rather 
than  calendar  years,  as  a  basis.  I  assume  some  slackening 
towards  the  end  of  Shakespeare's  career,  and  do  not  treat 
literally  Ward's  statement  that  he  supplied  his  company 
with  two  plays  a  year.1 


1  Cf.  App.  C,  no.  ix. 


27o  THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY    Chap.  VIII 

1590-1. 

2  Henry  VI. 

3  Henry  71. 

1591-2. 
i  Henry  VI. 


Richard  III. 
Comedy  of  Errors. 

1593-4- 

Titus  Andronicus. 
Taming  of  the  Shrew. 

1594-5- 

Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona. 
Love's  Labour's  Lost. 
Romeo  and  Juliet. 

1595-6. 
Richard  II. 
Midsummer-Night's  Dream. 

1596-7. 
King  John. 
Merchant  of  Venice. 

1597-8. 
j  Henry  IV. 
2  Henry  IV. 

1598-9. 

Much  Ado  About  Nothing. 
Henry  V. 

1599-1600. 
Julius  Caesar. 
As  You  Like  It. 
Twelfth  Night. 

1600-1, 
Hamlet. 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor. 


Chap.  VIII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY  271 

1 60 1-2. 
Troilus  and  Cressida* 

1602-3. 
All  's  Well  That  Ends  Well 

1603-4. 

1604-5. 

Measure  for  Measure. 
Othello. 

1605-6. 
King  Lear. 
Macbeth. 

1606-7. 
Antony  and  Choftatra. 

1607-8. 
Coriolanus. 
Timon  oj  Athens. 

1608-9. 
Pericles. 

1609-10. 
Cymbeline. 

1610-11. 
Winter**  Tale. 

1611-12. 
Tempest. 

1612-13. 

#**ry  Fill. 

Two  Noble  Kinsmen. 

Something  may  be  added  about  the  main  points  of 
difficulty.  The  first  is  as  to  the  position  of  Taming  of  the 
Shrew.  It  has  often  been  put  nearer  to  1 598  than  to  1 594, 
because  of  the  resemblance  of  its  provincial  environment 
to  that  of  2  Henry  IV.  The  neighbourhood  of  Stratford 


272  THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY    Chap.  VIII 

must,  however,  always  have  been  within  the  scope  of 
Shakespeare's  memory.  The  problem  is  complicated  by 
that  of  identifying  the  Love  Labours  Won  of  Meres's 
list.  It  is  most  natural  to  take  this  as  an  alternative  title 
for  some  extant  play.  Such  alternative  titles,  which  may 
sometimes  be  no  more  than  unofficial  descriptions,  are  not 
uncommon,  although  the  only  ones  which  have  got  into 
the  prints  of  the  plays  are  The  Contention  of  Tork  and 
Lancaster  for  2,  3  Henry  VI  and  What  Tou  Will  for 
Twelfth  Night.  But  elsewhere  we  get,  certainly  or  prob- 
ably, Robin  Goodfellow  for  Midsummer-Night's  Dream,  Old- 
castle,  Fahtaff  and  Hotspur  for  Henry  IV,  Benedicte 
and  Eetteris  for  Much  Ado  About  Nothing,  Malvolio  for 
Twelfth  Night,  All  is  True  for  Henry  VIIL1  Claims  have 
been  made  for  the  equation  of  Love  Labours  Won 
with  Love's  Labour 's  Lost,  Midsummer-Night's  Dream, 
Twelfth  Nighty  Much  Ado  About  Nothing,  All's  Well  That 
Ends  Well,  Tempest,  and  Taming  of  the  Shrew  itself.  The 
two  first  may  be  at  once  dismissed;  they  assume  that 
Meres  meant  to  attach  a  second  title  to  the  entries  which 
follow  and  precede  that  of  Love  Labours  Won,  and 
this  his  wording  makes  impossible.  There  is  little  to  go 
upon,  except  the  implications  of  the  title  itself,  and  the 
possibility  of  finding  a  play  of  early  date  not  otherwise 
named  by  Meres.  The  titles  of  Shakespeare's  comedies 
have  rarely  any  significance;  As  Tou  Like  It  and  What 
Tou  Will  are  floutingly  vague.  Almost  any  love  comedy 
might  bear  the  title  in  question;  it  is  least  appropriate  to 
Much  Ado  About  Nothing,  which  is,  however,  on  the  border 
of  Meres's  range,  and  might  fall  within  it  The  wit- 
combats  between  Benedick  and  Beatrice,  resembling  those 
between  Berowne  and  Rosaline  in  Love's  Labour  V  Lost, 
have  been  called  in  aid,  and  the  references  which  the  two 
plays  have  in  common  to  Cupid  as  the  god  of  love  and  to 
Hercules,  who  no  doubt  performed  labours.  Similarly,  it 
is  pointed  out  that  the  resemblance  of  twins  is  a  motive 
common  to  Twelfth  Night  and  the  Comedy  of  Errors.  But 
is  it  not  more  likely  that  an  interval  would  have  been 

1  Cf.  vol.  i,  pp.  329,  343,  344,  346,  347,  382.      . 


Chap.  VIII    THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY  273 

allowed  to  expire  before  such  situations  were  repeated? 
The  'labours'  found  in  The  Tempest  are  Ferdinand's 
athletic  wrestlings  with  the  logs.  There  is  really  no  reason 
for  assuming  an  early  version  of  Twelfth  Night  or  of  The 
Tempest.  It  is  upon  the  assumption  of  such  a  version  that 
the  case  for  All 's  Well  That  Ends  Well  has  been  defended, 
and  this  also  I  reject.  A  suggestion  of  an  old  as  well  as 
a  new  title  might  indeed  be  found  in  'All  is  well  ended,  if 
this  suit  be  won',  and  in  Helena's  statement  just  before 
that  Bertram  is  'doubly  won'.  Taming  of  the  Shrew  also 
has  several  references  to  winning,  although  more  obviously 
the  winning  of  Petruchio's  wager  than  of  his  wife's  love.1 
If  we  set  aside  Much  Ado  About  Nothing  as  too  remote  in 
theme  from  the  title,  Taming  of  the  Shrew  is  the  only 
comedy  which,  as  it  stands,  could  fill  a  gap  in  Meres's 
list.  And  the  stylistic  evidence,  so  far  as  one  can  judge  it 
through  the  uncertainty  as  to  the  extent  of  Shakespeare's 
authorship,  is  in  favour  of  a  quite  early  date.  With  some 
hesitation  I  have  put  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  at  a  little 
distance  from  the  other  Falstaff  plays,  and  I  think  that  this 
is  justified  by  the  borrowing  from  Hamlet  in  a  report 
which  must  rest  on  early  performances,  since  the  ob- 
noxious name  Brooke  still  survived.  And  if  an  explanation 
is  necessary  for  the  continuance  of  light-hearted  comedy 
after  the  period  of  gloom  had  begun,  the  need  to  obey  a 
royal  behest  may  supply  it.  The  time-relation  of  King  Lear 
and  Macbeth  is  not  very  clear.  The  verse-tests,  as  shown  by 
Dr.  Bradley,  confirm  the  priority  I  have  given  to  King  Lear •, 
but  I  cannot  put  much  confidence  in  their  application  to 
a  play  like  Macbeth^  which  can  hardly  be  in  its  original 
form.  Nor  am  I  at  all  clear  about  the  dating  of  Timon  of 
Athens.  This  Dr.  Bradley  would  place  between  King  Lear 

to  that  of  King  Lear )  and  partly  again  on  metrical  grounds*2 
But  an  unfinished  play  is  even  less  likely  than  an  abridged 

1  All's  Wel^  v.  3.  315,  336$  Tom.  If  haply  won,  perhaps  a  hapless  gain; 

cf  Shrew,  iv,  5.  23;  v,  2.  69,  112, 116,  If  lost,  why  then  a  grievous  labour 

1 86.  But  the  winning  of  love's  labour  won. 

connotes  an  unsuccessful  suit  in  Two  *  Bradley,  443, 470. 
Gent,  of  Per.  i.  x.  32, 

3X42.1  T 


274  THE  PROBLEM  OF  CHRONOLOGY    Chap.  VIII 

play  to  answer  to  the  metrical  tests,  and  it  would  be  hard 
to  find  room  for  Timon  of  Athens  in  the  already  rather 
full  year  1605-6.  I  agree  as  to  the  temper.  Both  King 
Lear  and  Timon  of  Athens  seem  to  show  symptoms  of  mental 
disturbance.  But  mental  disturbance  may  come  in  waves* 
It  may  very  likely  only  be  a  whimsy  of  my  own  that  during 
the  attempt  at  Timon  of  Athens  a  wave  broke,  that  an  illness 
followed,  and  that  when  it  passed,  the  breach  between  the 
tragic  and  the  romantic  period  was  complete. 


CHAPTER  IX 
PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO 

[Bibliographical  Note.  Facsimiles  of  Fi  were  edited  by  H*  Staunton 
(i  866),  H.  P.  (i  876),  and  S.  Lee  (1902,  Cl.  Press),  and  a  series  of  all  four 
Folios  was  issued  (Methuen)  in  1 904-10.  A  series  of  single  plays,  edited  by 
J.  D.  Wilson,  is  in  progress.  For  many  purposes  the  very  accurate  reprint 
byL.Booth(i862-4)willserve.  TheSAalespeart  Quarto  Facsimiles  (i&$o- 
9,  43  vols.),  supervised  by  F.  J.  Fumivall,  replace  the  lithographic  series 
( 1 862-71, 48  vols.)  done  by  E.  W.  Ashbee  for  H.P.  But  the  photographic 
reproduction  is  not  always  satisfactory.  Only  the  more  important  of  the 
critical  editions  can  here  be  named.  Many  of  them  underwent  reprints 
and  revisions,  and  a  list  of  these  and  of  other  editions  of  less  critical  sig- 
nificance is  in  W.  Jaggard,  Shakespeare  Bibliography  (iqii),^.  The  best 
eighteenth-century  work  is  surveyed  in  T.  R.  Lounsbury,  The  First  Editors 
ofSL  (1906);  H.  B.  Wheatley,  Sfs.  Editors  (1916,  BiM.  Soc.  Trans,  xiv. 
145);  A.Nicoll, TheEditorsofSLfromFitoMalone(ig2^StudiesinFi9 
157);  D.  Nichol  Smith,  Sh.  in  the  Eighteenth  Century  (1928).  The  first 
edition  was  that  of  Nicholas  Rowe  (1709,  6  vols.).  It  was  followed  ;by 
those  of  Alexander  Pope  (1723-5,  6  vok);  Lewis  Theobald  (1733!  7 
vols.),  who  had  criticized  Pope  in  his  Si.  Restored (1726);  Sir  Thomas 
Hanmer  (1743-4*  6  vols.);  William  Warburton  (1747, 8  vok);  Edward 
Capell  (1767-8, 10  vols.),  who  added  separate  Notes  andFarious  Readings^ 
of  which  vol.  i  appeared  in  1774,  and  was  withdrawn,  to  be  reprinted  in 
1779 and  reissued  in  1783,  with  additions  printed  in  I78o,andavol.iii,not 
directly  concerned  with  the  plays,  called  The  School  of  Shakespeare.  Capell 
had  been  preceded  by  Samuel  Johnson,  whose  first  edition  (1765,  8  vok) 
underwent  a  series  of  revisions.  The  first  (1773, 10  vols.),  but  for  a  little 
help  from  Johnson  himself,  was  by  George  Steevens,  who  had  already 
published  his  Twenty  of  the  Plays  of  Shakespeare  (1766,  4  vok)  from 
Quartos.  The  second  (1778,  10  vols.)  was  also  by  Steevens,  not,  as  is 
sometimes  said,  by  Isaac  Reed.  Edmund  Malone  contributed  to  it  his 
first  Attempt  to  Ascertain  the  Order  in  which  the  Plays  of  Shakespeare  were 
Written,  and  added  a  Supplement  (17*0, 2  vols.)  with  notes,  the  first  draft 
of  his  History  of  the  Stage>  and  the  poems  and  doubtful  plays.  To  this  he 
issued  an  Appendix  (1783).  The  third  revision  was  by  Isaac  Reed  (1785, 
ro  vols.).  The  fourth  was  again  by  Steevens  (1793,  15  vok),  and  the 
fifth  (1803,  21  vols.)  and  sixth  (1813,  21  vok)  by  Reed.  A  few  notes 
given  by  Malone  to  the  edition  of  1785,  and  critical  of  Steevens,  led  to  an 
enduring  feud,  and  Malone's  Dissertation  on  the  Three  Parts  of  Henry  71 
(1787)  was  followed  by  an  independent  edition  (1790*  10  vok).  A 
revision  occupied  Malone  to  his  death  in  1812,  and  was  published,  so  far 
as  complete,  by  the  younger  James  Boswell  (1821,  21  vok).  The  book- 

T2 


276  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

sellers  have  chosen  to  call  the  1803  and  1813  editions  of  Johnson  and 
Steevens  the  First  and  Second  Variorum  Shakespeare;,  and  the  1821  edition 
of  Malone,  although  of  different  origin,  the  Third  Variorum.  This  does, 
however,  incorporate  many  prefaces  and  notes  of  Malone's  predecessors, 
and  may  be  regarded  as  the  final  word  of  eighteenth-century  scholarship 
on  Shakespeare.  Of  the  earlier  nineteenth-century  editions  may  be 
noted  those  of  S.  W.  Singer  (1826),  C.  Knight  (1838  ?-43),  J.  P. 
Collier  (184.2-4,  revised  1858),  G.  C.  Verplanck  (1847,  N.Y.),  H.  N. 
Hudson  (1852-7,  Boston,  revised  1881),  J.  O.  Halliwell  [-Phillipps] 
(1853-65,  Folio),  N.  Delius  (1854-65,  Elberfeld),  A.  Dyce  (1857, 
revised  1864-7),  R.  G.  White  (1857-66,  Boston),  H.  Staunton  (1858- 
60).  But  another  term  was  reached  in  the  Cambridge  edition  of  W.  G. 
Clark,  J.  Glover,  and  W.  Aldis  Wright  ( 1 863-6, 9  vols.,  revised  by  Wright, 
1891-3),  with  minute  collations,  which  are  still  the  basis  of  textual  study, 
although  modern  scholarship  looks  for  a  closer  genetic  analysis  of  the  rela- 
tions between  the  texts.  This  is  in  part  supplied  by  the  introductions  of 
F.  J.  Furnivall,  P.  A.  Daniel,  and  others  to  the  Sh.  Q.  Facsimiles.  The 
conception  of  a  parallel-text  edition  by  J.  Appleton  Morgan  and  others 
(1886-1906,  BanksideyN^f.9  22  vols.)  is  better  than  its  execution.  More 
scientific  parallel-texts  for  individual  pkys  are  noted  separately.  The  most 
useful  current  edition  for  general  commentary  is  the  Arden  (1899-1924, 
39  vols.)  under  the  successive  general  editorship  of  W.  J.  Craig  and  R.  H. 
Case,  but  the  volumes,  by  various  hands,  are  also  of  various  merit.  The 
New  Variorum  edition  (1871-1928,  19  plays  issued)  by  H.  H.  Furness 
and  his  son  of  like  name,  is  overloaded  with  dead  matter,  and  the  earlier 
volumes  pass  out  of  date  more  rapidly  than  the  kter  ones  are  added.  Other 
editions  of  note  are  by  F.  A.  Marshall  and  others  (1887-90,  Henry  Irving, 
8  vols.},  I.  Gollancz  (1894-6,  Temple,  40  vols.),  C.  H.  Herford  (1899, 
Everslej>  10  vols.),  A.  H.  Bullen  (1904-7,  Stratford  Town,  10  vols.).  The 
Tale  edition  (1918-28, 40  vols.)  is  by  various  American  hands.  The  New 
edition  of  A.T.  Quiller  Couch  and  J.  D.  Wilson  (1921-30,  13  pkys 
issued)  is  good  on  textual  criticism  and  interesting  but  speculative  on  textual 
history.  It  is  unfortunate  that  many  editions,  attractive  to  readers,  sys- 
tematically follow  the  Folio  text  for  all  pkys.  A  text  in  Elizabethan  spelling 
is  still  a  desideratum.  The  Old  Spelling  edition  of  F.  J.  Furnivall,  W.  G, 
Boswell-Stone,  and  F,  W.  Clarke  (1907-1 2,  17  pkys  issued)  remains  in- 
complete. Much  valuable  commentary  is  also  to  be  found  in  grouped 
editions  of  selected  pkys  for  students,  the  Clarendon  Press  by  W.  G. 
Ckrk  and  W.  A.  Wright,  the  Pitt  Press  by  A.  W.  Verity,  an  unnamed 
series  (Ckr.  Press)  by  G.  S.  Gordon,  and  the  Falcon  and  Warwick 
editions  by  various  hands.  The  latter  are  cited  under  the  pkys  concerned. 
Of  angle-volume  texts,  the  standard  is  the  Globe  (1864)  by  W.  G.  Ckrk 
and  W.  A.  Wright,  not  so  much  for  its  readings,  which  are  sometimes  opea 
to  question,  as  for  its  line-numeration,  which  is  generally  used  for  references. 
Some  original  errors  in  this  were  tabukted  in  N.S.S.  Transactions  (1880-6) 
3  f ,  and  appear  to  have  been  corrected  in  kter  issues.  This  numeration  is 


Chap.  IX  HENRY  THE  SIXTH  277 

preserved  in  the  Eversley  edition,  from  which,  in  view  of  its  greater  con- 
venience to  the  eyesight,  my  references  are  taken.  Other  single-volume 
editions  are  by  W.  J.  Craig  (1892,  Oxford),  W.  A.  Neilson  (1006,  Cam- 
bridge,  U.S.A.). 

I  have  given  for  each  pky  a  list  of  monographs  and  other  dissertations, 
especially  recent  ones.  These  lists  must  not  be  taken  as  exhaustive.  They 
exclude  papers  of  aesthetic  discussion,  and  probably  some  others  of  value, 
unknown  to  me,  in  foreign  periodicals.  They  include  some  which  I  have 
not  consulted,  particularly  on  sources.  I  give  these  to  supplement  my  own 
very  slight  treatment  of  Quellenforschung^ 

I,  II,  III.  HENRY  THE  SIXTH 

[S.R.  1594.]  xij°Marcij.  Thomas  Myllington.  Entredfor 
his  copie  vnder  the  handes  of  bothe  the  wardens  a  booke 
intituled,  the  firste  parte  of  the  Contention  of  the  twoo 
famous  houses  of  York  and  Lancaster  with  the  deathe  of 
the  good  Duke  Humfrey  and  the  banishement  and  Deathe 
of  the  Duke  of  Suffolk  and  the  tragicall  ende  of  the  prowd 
Cardinall  of  Winchester,  with  the  notable  rebellion  of 
Jack  Cade  and  the  Duke  of  Yorkes  ffirste  clayme  vnto 
the  Crowne  vjd  (Arber,  ii.  646). 

[Qi.  1594.]  The  First  part  of  the  Contention  betwixt 
the  two  famous  Houses  of  Yorke  and  Lancaster,  with  the 
death  of  the  good  Duke  Humphrey:  And  the  banish- 
ment and  death  of  the  Duke  of  Suffolke,  and  the  Tragicall 
end  of  the  proud  Cardinall  of  Winchester,  with  the  notable 
Rebellion  of  lacke  Cade:  And  the  Duke  of  Yorkes  first 
claime  vnto  the  Crowne.  [Creede's  device  (McKerrow 
299).]  London,  Printed  by  Thomas  Creed,  for  Thomas 
Millington,  and  are  to  be  sold  at  his  shop  vnder  Saint 
Peters  Church  in  Corn  wall.  1594.  [Head-mh^artin  caps.] 
The  First  Part  of  the  Contention  of  the  two  famous  Houses 
of  Yorke  &  Lancaster,  with  the  death  of  the  good  Duke 
Humphrey.  \Running-title\  The  first  part  of  the  conten- 
tion of  the  two  famous  Houses,  of  Yorke  and  Lancaster. 
[As  Colophon,  device  and  imprint  repeated.] 

[Qi.  1595.]  ThetrueTragedieof  Richard  Duke  of  Yorke, 
and  the  death  of  good  King  Henrie  the  Sixt,  with  the 
whole  contention  betweene  the  two  Houses  Lancaster  and 


278  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

Yorke,  as  it  was  sundrie  times  acted  by  the  Right  Honour- 
able the  Earle  of  Pembrooke  his  seruants.  [Millington's 
device  (McKerrow  302).]  Printed  at  London  by  P(eter) 
S(hort)  for  Thomas  Millington,  and  are  to  be  sold  at  his 
shoppe  vnder  Saint  Peters  Church  in  Cornwal.  1595. 
[Head-titley  under  ornament  with  Stationers'  arms]  The 
true  Tragedie  of  Richard  Duke  of  Yorke,  and  the  good 
King  Henry  the  Sixt  [Running-title']  The  Tragedie  of 
Richard  D.  of  Yorke,  and  Henrie  the  sixt. 
[In8°,not4.t0.] 

Facsimiles.  C.  Praetorius  (1889,  Sh.  Q.  xxxvii,  ed.  F.  J.  Furnivall; 
1891,  Sh.  Q.  xxxviii,  ed.  T.  Tyler). 

Reprints.  ].  O.  HaUiwell  (1843,  Sh.  Socji  W.  C.  Hazlitt  (1875, 
Sh*s.  Library,  v.  379;  vi.  i);  W.  A.  Wright  (Cambridge  Sh.  ix. 
507). 

[Qa.  1600.]  The  First  part  of  the  Contention  betwixt  the 
two  famous  houses  of  Yorke  and  Lancaster,  with  the  death 
of  the  good  Duke  Humphrey:  And  the  banishment  and 
death  of  the  Duke  of  Suffolke,  and  the  Tragical  end  of 
the  prowd  Cardinall  of  Winchester,  with  the  notable 
Rebellion  of  lacke  Cade:  And  the  Duke  of  Yorkes  first 
chyme  to  the  Crowne,  [Simmes's  device  (McKerrow  1 42).] 
London  Printed  by  Valentine  Simmes  for  Thomas  Mil- 
lington, and  are  to  be  solde  at  his  shop  vnder  S.  Peters 
church  in  CornewalL  1600.  [Head-title]  The  first  part  of 
the  Contention  of  the  two  famous  Houses  of  Yorke  and 
Lancaster,  with  the  death  of  the  good  Duke  Humphrey. 
\Runmng-title']  The  first  part  of  the  contention  of  the  two 
famous  houses,  of  Yorke  and  Lancaster. 
[An  alleged  issue  printed  for  Millington  by  W.  W.  in  1600  rests 
only  on  a  MS.  tp.  pre6xed,  together  with  one  reproducing  the 
Simmes's  imprint,  to  one  of  Malone's  examples  (Bodl.  Mai  36), 
which  has  lost  its  printed  tp.  Probably  Malone  was  guessing.] 

[Q2.  1600.3  T&e  True  Tragedie  of  Richarde  Duke  of 
Yorke,  and  the  death  of  good  King  Henrie  the  sixt:  With 
the  whole  contention  betweene  the  two  Houses,  Lancaster 
and  Yorke;  as  Jt  was  sundry  times  acted  by  the  Right 
Honourable  the  Earle  of  Pembrooke  his  seruantes.  [Orna- 


Chap.  IX  HENRY  THE  SIXTH  279 

ment]  Printed  at  Londou  (sic)  by  W(illiam)  W(hite)  for 
Thomas  Millington,  and  are  to  be  sold  .at  his  shoppe 
vnder  Saint  Peters  Church  in  Cornewall.  1600*  {Head- 
title.']  The  True  Tragedie  Of  Richard  Duke  Of  Yorke, 
And  The  Good  King  Henrie  The  Sixt.  [Running- 
title]  The  Tragedie  of  Richard  D.  of  Yorke,  and  Henrie 
the  Sixt. 

[S.R.  1602.]  19  Aprilis  .  .  .  Thomas  Pavier.  Entredfor 
his  copies  by  assignement  from  Thomas  Millington  these 
bookes  folowinge,  Saluo  Jure  cuiuscunque  viz.  .  . .  The 
firste  and  Second  parte  of  Henry  the  vj*  ij  bookes  xijd  — 
Entred  by  warrant  vnder  master  Setons  hand  (Arber,  iii. 
204). 

[Q3-  i6i9«]  The  Whole  Contention  betweene  the  two  • 
Famous  Houses,  Lancaster  and  Yorke.  With  the  Tragicall 
ends  of  the  good  Duke  Humfrey,  Richard  Duke  of  Yorke, 
and  King  Henrie  the  sixt.  Diuided  into  two  Parts:  And 
newly  corrected  and  enlarged.  Written  by  William 
Shakespeare,  Gent  [W.  Jaggard's  device  (McKerrow 
283).]  Printed  at  London,  for  T(homas)  P(avier).  [A2 
Head-title]  The  first  part  of  the  Contention  of  the  two 
Famous  Houses  of  Yorke  and  Lancaster,  with  the  death 
of  the  good  Duke  Humfrey.  [I  Head-title^  under  orna- 
ment with  royal  arms]  The  Second  Part.  Containing 
the  Tragedie  of  Richard  Duke  of  Yorke,  and  the  good 
,  King  Henrie  the  Sixt.  [Running-title,  for  both  parts'] 
The  contention  of  the  two  famous  Houses  of  Yorke 
and  Lancaster. . 

[Datable  by  continuity  of  signatures  with  those  of  Pericles  (1619).] 
Facsimile.  C.  Praetorius  (1886,  Sh.  Q.  xxiii,  xxiv,  ed.  F.  J. 
Furnivall). 

[S.R.I623.]  Mr  William  Shakspeers  Comedyes  His- 
tories, and  Tragedyes  soe  manie  of  the  said  Copies  as^are 
not  formerly  entred  to  other  men.  viz* .  .  .  The  thirde 
parte  of  Henry  ye  Sixt . .  „ 

[For  full  entry,  cf.  p.  138.  (This  must  be  I  Henry  VL  There 
is  no  original  entry  of  3  Henry  VI*  but  the  transfer  of  1602  must 
have  been  relied  upon.] 


28o  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

[Fi.  1623.]  [Catalogue]  The  First  part  of  King  Henry 
the  Sixt.  .  .  .  The  Second  part  of  King  Hen.  the  Sixt.  .  .  . 
The  Third  part  of  King  Henry  the  Sixt.  [Histories,  pp. 
96-172,  sign.  k2v-q4\  Head-titles]  The  first  Part  of 
Henry  the  Sixt.  .  ,  The  second  Part  of  Henry  the  Sixt, 
with  the  death  of  the  Good  Duke  Humfrey.  .  .  The 
third  Part  of  Henry  the  Sixt,  with  the  death  of  the  Duke 
of  Yorke.  [Running-titles']  The  first  Part  of  Henry  the 
Sixt  .  .  The  second  Part  of  Henry  the  Sixt.  .  .  The  third 
Part  of  King  Henry  the  Sixt. 

[j  Henry  VI.  Acts  and  sec.  I,  and  in  iii  and  iv  all  sec.  marked 
(altered  in  modern  eds.)  2,  3  Henry  VI.  Act  i,  sc.  i  marked  for  each.] 

Parallel-Texts.  [2  Henry  VI]  C.  W.  Thomas;  [3  Henry  VI] 
A.  Morgan  (1892,  Bankside,  xix,  xx). 

Modern  Editions.  H.  C.  Hart  (1909,  j  Henry  VI\  1909,  2  Henry 
Vh  1910,  1925,  3  Henry  Vl\  Arden}\  C.  F.  T.  Brooke  (1918- 
23,  Tale\ 

Dissertations.  E.  Malone,  Dissertation  on  H.  VI  (1787,  repr.  Par.  xviii. 
553);  C.  Knight,  Essay  on  H.  VI  and  R.  7//(i838?-43,  Pict.SA.vii.  399); 
R.  G.  White,  On  the  Authorship  of  H.  VI  (1859,  repr.  8k.  vii.  403); 
F.  G.  Fleay,  Who  Wrote  H.  VI?  (i  875,  Macmillan's)  ;  J.  Lee,  The  Author- 
ship of  2,  3  H.  VI  anil  their  Originals  (i  ZfaN.S.S.  Trans.  2  19)  ;  N.  Delius, 
ZurKiitik  der  Doppeltexte  des  Sh*s.  2,  3  H.  VI  (1880,  J.  xv.  21  1  ;  Abl. 
"•  95)?  J-  B.  Hennemann,  The  Episodes  in  i  H.  VI  (1900,  P.M.L.A.  xv. 
290);  W.  J.  Courthope,  On  the  Authenticity  of  Some  of  the  Early  Plays 
Assigned  to  Sh.  (1903,  H.E.P.  iv.  455);  K.  Schmidt,  Margareta  von  Anjou 
vor  und  lei  Sh.  (1906);  H.  Conrad,  Entstehung  des  2,  3  H.  VI  (1909, 
Z.f.fi>anz.  undengl.  Unterricht,  viii.48i);  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke,  The 
Authorship  of  2,  3  H.  71  (1912,  Tram.  Connecticut  Acad.  xvii.  141); 
P.  Seyferth,  In  welchem  Verhaltnis  Steht  2  H.  Pisa  Cont.  und  3  H.  FI  zu 
True  Tragj  (i<)i69AngIia9&.  323);  H.  D.  Gray,  The  Purport  of  Sh.'s 
Contribution  to  i  H.  VI  (1917,  PM.L^f.  xxxii.  367);  A.  W.  Pollard,  The 
Tork  and  Lancaster  Plays  in  the  Sh.  Folio  (1918,  Sept.  19,  26,  r.Z.$.); 
E.  v.  Schaubert,  Drayton's  Anteil  an  2,  3  H.  VI  (1920);  P.  Alexander, 
2  H.  VI  and  the  Copy  for  Cont.  and  3  H.  VI  and  True  Trag.  (1924, 
Oct.  9,  Nov.  13,  ZVtA)»  WA  H.  VI  and  R.  Ill  (1929);  C.  L. 
Kingsford,  Fifteenth  Century  History  in  Sh.'s  Plays  (1925,  Prejudice 
and  Promise  in  Fifteenth  Century  England,  i);  I.  Gourvitch,  Dray  ton 
and  H.  VI  (1926,  N.Q.  cli.  201,  219,  239,  257);  A.  Gaw,  The  Origin 
and  Development  of  i  H.  VI  (1926,  Univ.  South  Carolina  Studies,  i); 
E.  K.  Chambers,  The  Relation  of  Cont.  to  2,  3  Hen.  VI  ^(1926,  Proc.  Oxford 
Bill.  Soc.  ii.  i,  in  summary),  Actors'  Gag  in  Elizabethan  Plays  (1928, 
Mar.  8,  * 


s 


Chap.  IX  HENRY  THE  SIXTH  281 

(a)  2,  3  Henry  VI. 

The  tradition  of  scholarship  from  the  time  of  Malone  has, 
with  occasional  dissent,  regarded  The  Contention  (Q)  as  an 
original  two-part  play,  afterwards  revised  as  2,  3  Henry  VI 
(F).  I  formerly  accepted  this  view,1  but  a  recent  study, 
suggested  by  Alexander's  papers  and  Greg's  work  on 
Merry  Wit}e$  of  Windsor  and  Orlando  Furioso^  has  convinced 
me  that  it  is  wrong.  Q  and  F  compare  as  follows.  The 
main  structure,  in  plot,  order  of  episodes,  distribution  of 
characters,  even  succession  of  speakers,  is,  subject  to  cer- 
tain lacunae  and  dislocations,  the  same*  Q  is  in  both  parts 
the  shorter  by  about  a  third,  and  omits  a  good  deal  of  the 
best  poetry  in  F.  The  purport  of  what  is  left  agrees,  but 
the  differences  of  phrasing  are  very  notable;  especially  in 
2  Henry  VI>  where  Q  throughout  diverges  far  more  from 
F  than  in  3  Henry  VL  Misprints  in  both  texts  must  of 
course  be  allowed  for.  Sometimes  the  speeches  are  iden- 
tical. Sometimes  the  identity  is  only  broken  by  the  in- 
troduction of  equivalent  words,  variant  inflexions,  variant 
minor  parts  of  speech,  variations  in  the  order  of  words.  In 
these  passages  there  is  often  not  much  to  choose  between 
the  two  versions  from  a  literary  point  of  view.  Sometimes, 
again,  the  versions  are  little  inore  than  paraphrases  of  each 
other,  with  an  occasional  phrase  in  common,  and  some- 
times complete  paraphrases.  There  are  passages  in  Q 
which  look  like  mosaics  of  scraps  from  F.  Prose  in  Q 
may  represent  verse  in  F.  A  Q  line  often  appears  in  an 
earlier  or  even  later  speech  or  scene  or  even  part  of  F, 
and  may  be  repeated  there  in  Q.  Thus  in  2  Hen.  VI^ 
iii.  49  of  Q  is  from  ii.  3.  29;  vi.  55  from  i.  i.  254;  x. 
14-15  from  iii.  i.  69-71 ;  in  3  Hen.  VI,  v.  52-3  from  i.  2. 
33—4;  x.  30—1  from  v.  3.  1—2;  xii,  107  from  v.  7.  22; 
xxiii.  19-21  from  iv.  8.  60-1 ;  also  in  2  Hen.  VIy  ix,  1 1 8 
from  3  Hen.  VI \  i.  4.  102;  xxii.  64  from  3  Hen.  VI^  ii.  5. 
I35.2  Metrically,  Q  is  inferior  to  F;  it  has  more  harshly 
irregular  lines  and  many  collocations  of  ten  syllables, 

1  Eliz.  Stage,  ii.  130,  200$  ££.,  a  Survey,  4. 

3  I  cite  the  lineation  of  the  Sh.  Quarto  Facsimiles. 


282  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

which  pay  no  regard  to  stress.  The  pronunciation  of  in- 
dividual words  is  more  archaic  in  Q  than  in  F.  The  linea- 
tion  of  Q  constantly  goes  astray,  and  this  often  seems  due  to 
the  omission  of  F  words  or  to  the  presence  of  superfluous 
Connective'  phrases  (cf.  p.  157)  not  in  F,  after  which  the 
verse  lines  follow  regularly  but  are  wrongly  divided,  until 
a  broken  line  or  a  fresh  error  leads  to  recovery.  Broadly 
speaking,  Q  is  often  halting  and  barbarous,  where  F  is 
logical  and  rhythmical. 

Much  of  this  can  be  explained  and  has  been  explained 
on  the  theory  that  a  reviser  took  an  old  play  in  hand,  wrote 
it  up  almost  speech   by  speech,  smoothed  out  metrical 
irregularities  and  obsolete  pronunciations,  replaced  prose 
by  verse,  expanded  throughout,  added  many  poetical  pas- 
sages, but  at  the  same  time  took  pains  to  use  every  shred 
of  the  old  text  which  could  be  made  to  suit  his  purpose, 
either  in  its  original  or  in  an  altered  position.  Against  this 
theory  there  are  two  a  priori  objections.  Firstly,  there  is 
no  evidence  (cf.  p.  2 1 3)  for  any  such  practice  of  meticulous 
stylistic  revision  in  the  Elizabethan  theatre.    Secondly, 
who  could  ever  have  written  such  a  text  as  Q,  which  in 
some  places  shows  the  hand  of  a  competent  dramatist,  and 
in  others  is  too  bad  for  the  veriest  stage  hack,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  competent  dramatists  to  whom  it  has  been 
ascribed?   It  must  anyhow  have  undergone  corruption, 
and  in  fact  the  stylistic  differences  from  F  can  be  explained 
just  as  well  by  the  corruption  of  a  memorizing  reporter 
(cf.  p.  157)  as  by  revision.   Many  of  the  features  of  Q, 
indeed,  recur  in  the  'bad*  Qq  of  Hamlet,  Romeo  and  Juliet, 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor,  and  Henry  7,  where  also  a  reporter 
seems  to  be  wholly  or  in  part  responsible.   Moreover,  a 
report  is  the  best  explanation  of  the  mislineations,  as  due 
to  'connective'  phrases  picked  up  from  the  mouths  of 
actors,  of  certain  historical  confusions  whicli  appear  in 
the  Q  text,  and  one  at  least  of  which  cannot  have  been 
due  to  the  plotter  of  the  play,  and  perhaps  of  numerous 
'auditory*  errors,  although  the  compositor  may  (cf.  p.  1 80) 
be  responsible  for  some  of  these.  And  it  is  the  only  satis- 
factory explanation  of  the  transference  of  lines,  often  from 


Chap.  IX  HENRY  THE  SIXTH  283 

later  passages  of  the  text,  which  a  reviser  is  not  likely  to 
have  studied  in  advance,  but  which  the  imperfect  memory 
of  a  reporter,  having  already  his  knowledge  of  the  whole 
play,  may  well  have  dislocated.    The  same  imperfect 
memory  will  account  for  the  unevenness  of  the  reporter's 
work.  Sometimes  he  attained  fair  precision.  Often  he  for- 
got lines  to  the  detriment  of  sense,  grammar,  and  dramatic 
effect;  often  he  misplaced  lines  or  speeches;  often  he  was 
only  able  to  recover  broken  phrases;  often  he  was  driven 
to  piece  out  a  general  recollection  of  purport  with  poor 
verse  or  prose  of  his  own.  As  to  who  the  reporter  is  likely 
to  have  been,  there  is  room  for  difference  of  opinion.  A 
shorthand  writer  (cf.  p.  159)  would  not  transfer  remote 
lines.  Alexander  conjectures  for  2  Henry  Vl&n  actor  who 
had  played  Suffolk  and  Cade,  perhaps  with  the  aid  of  a 
fragmentary  transcript,  and  for  3  Henry  VI  an  actor  who 
had  played  Warwick  and  Clifford,  perhaps  with  the  aid  of 
'parts'.  I  do  not  see  any  evidence  for  a  fragmentary  tran- 
script, or  know  why  any  such  document  should  come  into 
existence.   Conceivably  the  reporter  had  the  short  'part' 
of  the  Citizen.1  But  I  doubt  whether  the  characters  named 
by  Alexander  are  so  much  better  rendered  than  the  rest 
throughout,  as  to  point  to  actors.   On  the  whole  I  am 
inclined  to  suggest  that  the  reporter  was  a  book-keeper, 
who  would  be  in  a  good  position  to  get  a  general  but  in- 
exact knowledge  of  the  whole  course  of  a  play  which  he 
had  often  prompted.  Perhaps  he  did  3  Henry  VI  better 
than  2  Henry  VI  because  it  had  been  more  recently  on  the 
stage.  And  I  think  he  may  have  retained  a  'plot',  which 
would  not  help  him  for  the  dialogue,  but  would  for  the 
ordering  of  the  scenes,  and  for  the  stage-directions.  These, 
in  both  F  and  Q,  are  exceptionally  full  and  descriptive, 
with  many  notes  on  the  purport  of  scenes,  the  relation  of 
characters,  grouping,  apparel,  properties,  and   both  at 
entries  and  in  the  margin  for  action  and  the  address  of 
speeches.  They  differ  by  omissions  and  additions  and  in 
details.    But  they  have  dearly  a  common  origin.   The 
longest  is  identical  in  the  two  texts.*  The  hand  of  an 

.  3-  59- 


284  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

author  is  discernible,  especially  in  part  2,  in  vagueness  as 
to  numbers  and  the  like,  left  to  the  discretion  of  the 
management.  The  directions  of  F  might  well  be  the 
author's,  perhaps  expanded  by  a  book-keeper;  those  of  Q 
an  adaptation  for  a  'plot'.  Q,  but  not  F,  has  the  common 
'plot*  formula  for  the  entry  of  characters  'to*  each  other.1 
Musical  notes  and  a  few  directions  in  the  imperative  mood 
suggest  that  both  sets  were  primarily  for  the  guidance  of 
stage  action  rather  than  a  reader. 

In  two  scenes,  however,  of  part  2  (i.  4;  iii,  2)  a  different 
staging  appears  to  be  contemplated  by  Q  and  F,  and  this 
is  not  the  only  indication  that  the  intervention  of  a  re- 
porter does  not  by  itself  completely  account  for  the  relation 
of  the  versions.  The  basis  of  Q  must  have  been  a  produc- 
tion for  which  the  original  text  had  been  cut.  Two  or 
three  short  episodes  may  have  been  omitted.  Sections  of 
long  speeches  in  F,  which  should  have  been  the  easiest  to 
remember,  have  disappeared  without  leaving  any  traces 
upon  Q.  The  object  of  the  cutting  is  not  quite  clear. 
Probably  a  reduction  in  the  time  required  for  presentation 
was  alone  in  view;  there  is  no  reduction  in  the  number  of 
actors  needed  for  the  most  crowded  scenes.  It  is  not,  of 
course,  possible  to  say  how  much  of  the  difference  in 
length  between  F  and  Q  is  due  to  cuts,  and  how  much  to 
the  reporter's  lapses.  The  method  of  the  cuts  is  interest- 
ing. Much  of  the  poetry  goes  out,  the  similes,  the  classical 
allusions;  all  the  Latin.  This  is  noticeable  even  in  short 
lacunae,  which  one  would  otherwise  put  down  to  the 
reporter.  There  is  a  process  of  vulgarization.  If  there  was 
an  adaptation  by  cutting  for  the  stage,  a  few  differences 
in  the  order  of  speeches  and  episodes  may  also  be  due  to 
adaptation,  rather  than  to  the  reporter.  There  is  one  pretty 
clear  case.  In  part  3,  iv.  6  has  been  cut,  but  a  bit  about 
Henry  Tudor,  too  interesting  to  an  Elizabethan  audience 
to  be  lost,  has  been  salvaged  by  attaching  it  to  iv.  8. 

A  few  passages  in  both  parts,  while  written  in  fairly  good 
blank  verse,  are  not  in  F  or  so  unlike  those  in  F  as  to  require 
some  buttressing  of  the  'report*  theory.  I  do  not  suppose 

1  2  Htn.  PI,  ii,  3.  i;  3  Hen.  H,  v.  6.  i. 


Chap.  IX  HENRY  THE  SIXTH  285 

that  the  same^  explanation  is  applicable  to  them  all.  One 
or  two  scenes  in  F  (cf.  infra)  may  have  been  rewritten  after 
the  Q  production.  Similarly,  some  highly  coloured  Q  lines 
in  i.  4  of  part  2  may  have  been  removed  when  the  staging 
of  that  scene  was  altered.  There  are  other  special  Q  pas- 
sages, which  are  so  featureless  that  perhaps  they  may 
reasonably  be  ascribed  to  the  reporter.  But  there  are  two 
which  betray  the  singular  fact  that  his  capricious  memory 
has  not  stopped  short  of  bringing  in  lines  from  another 
play  altogether.  He  takes  his  vii.  10  and  ix.  134-6  of 

2  Henry  VI from  Marlowe's  Edward II 265 1,  965-6.   On 
the  other  hand,  Massacre  of  Paris  952-3,  1376-9,  are  pro- 
bably themselves  taken  from  3  Hen.  VI,  v.  3.   1-2  and 

3  Hen.  VI,  ii.  i.  68-9.'  There  are  similar  transfers  in  the 
reported  Qq  of  Hamlet  and  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  (q.v.}. 
And  if  a  play  known  to  us  has  been  so  drawn  upon,  other 
comparatively  striking  Q  lines  may  belong  to  plays  not 
known.2    Finally,  Q  probably  incorporates  some  small 
theatrical  interpolations  and  gags.  Occasionally  the  men- 
tion of  a  place-name  at  the  end  of  a  scene  helps  the 
audience  to  locate  a  coming  scene.  The  Cade  episodes  of 
Q  chiefly  differ  from  those  of  F  by  an  unusual  amount  of 
dislocation  and  several  gags.   Such  are  the  knighting  of 
Dick  Butcher  (2  Hen.  VI,  Q  xiii.  77)  and  others  (xviii. 
17-21,  71-7)  less  decent. 

Discussions  of  authorship  have  been  much  complicated 
by  the  revision  theory.  Most  of  those  who  have  found  the 
hands  of  Marlowe,  Kyd,  Peele,  Greene,  Lodge,  and  Nashe, 
as  well  as  of  Shakespeare,  in  the  plays,  have  held  it,  and 
have  been  dispensed  by  it  from  putting  their  theories  to 
the  test  of  indicating  where  one  hand  ended  and  another 
began.  A  partial  exception  is  Fleay,  who  recognized  the 
surreptitious  character  of  Q,  and  in  1886  modified  an 
earlier  view  by  assigning  3  Henry  VI  substantially  to 
Marlowe,  and  dividing  2  Henry  VI  between  Greene  (i.  i), 
Peele  (most  of  i.  2-ii.  4),  Kyd  (ii,  i.  59-153),  Mar- 
lowe (i.  3.  45-103;  iii.  i-iv.  i),  and  Lodge  (iv.  2-v.  3). 

1  Cf.  Greg  in  M.S.R.  Massacre,  viii. 

*  E.g.  xxi.  52-4,  inserted  after  2  Hen.  PIt  v.  i.  70. 


286  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

Shakespeare  he  only  brought  in  about  1600,  as  revising 
2  Henry  VI considerably  and  3  Henry  VI  slightly.  In  1 59 1 
he  substituted  Drayton  as  reviser.  Von  Schaubert  also  finds 
Drayton  in  several  scenes,  but  this  has  been  sufficiently 
refuted  by  Gourvitch.  The  external  evidence  of  F  and  the 
1619  title-page  of  course  tells  substantially  for  Shake- 
speare, Meres  does  not  name  the  plays  as  Shakespeare's 
in  1598,  but  while  the  presence  of  a  name  in  his  list  has 
great  weight,  the  absence  of  one  has  much  less.  There 
may,  moreover,  have  been  no  revival  between  his  coming 
to  London  and  the  compilation  of  his  list.  The  plays,  as 
they  stand,  are  loosely  constructed,  especially  part  2.  The 
Cade  scenes  are  naturally  differentiated  by  their  cornic 
subject-matter.  Clifford's  speech  in  2  Hen.  7Iyv.  2.  31- 
65,  seems  to  me  clearly  of  later  style  than  the  rest.  It  is 
certainly  Shakespearean,  although  the  unfortunate  Miss 
Lee,  pressed  by  Furnivall  to  be  precise  in  her  attributions, 
gave  it  to  Marlowe,  in  spite  of  the  internal  pausation.  The 
pastoral  of  j  Hen.  VI^  ii.  5,  may  also  be  later  Shakespeare, 
although  not  so  late.  Otherwise  I  find  no  obvious  sutures 
either  of  style  or  structure.  The  careless  substitution  of 
Elinor,  Elianor  and  Nell  for  Margaret  as  the  Queen's 
name  in  2  Hen.  VIy  iii.  2,  is  odd,  and  would  be  odd  on 
any  theory  of  authorship.  Pollard,  a  revisionist,  thinks 
that  the  character  of  Richard  has  undergone  transforma- 
tion; that  he  was  originally  conceived  by  Marlowe  as  a 
valiant  hunchback,  and  afterwards  altered  by  another 
writer,  with  a  prospective  Richard  III  play  in  his  mind, 
into  an  ambitious  hypocrite.  And  he  supposes  the  Q 
version  of  the  soliloquy  in  3  Hen.  VI r,  iii.  2.  124-95,  to 
be  an  afterthought  indicating  this  change  of  intention,  and 
inconsistent  with  the  rest  of  his  presentment  in  Q  until 
almost  the  last  scene,  where  it  is  clearly  being  linked  up 
with  the  coming  Richard  III.  On  the  assumption  that  F 
is  the  original  text,  this  view  can  hardly  stand.  Richard 
only  takes  hold  of  the  play,  naturally  enough,  after  his 
father's  death,  but  his  ultimate  character  is  already  ap- 
parent in  ii.  i.  41-2;  iii.  2.  1-117;  iv-  *•  83>  124-6. 
And  he  is  still  valiant  at  the  end  of  Richard  III.  If, 


Chap.  IX*  HENRY  THE  SIXTH  287 

as  I  hold,  Richard  III  is  Shakespeare's,  the  continuity  of 
Richard's  character  is  strong  ground  for  his  authorship  of 
3  Henry  VI.  The  internal  evidence  of  style  I  find  difficult 
to  handle.  I  do  not  think  that  we  have  adequate  criteria  for 
distinguishing  with  any  assurance  from  the  style  of  his 
contemporaries  that  of  a  young  writer  still  under  their 
influence.   Most  of  the  rhetorical  features  of  Richard  III 
are  also  to  be  found  in  3  Henry  VI^  but  less  continuously, 
among  straightforward  spaces  of  unornamented  writing. 
The    same    is   true,   perhaps  in   a  minor  degree,   of 
2  Henry  VI.    I  do  not  see  anything  improbable  in  the 
stylistic  development  which  the  historical  succession  of 
the  plays  suggests.    The  large  proportion  of  feminine 
endings  in  both  parts  tells  for  Shakespeare.    Certainly 
there  are  many  parallels  of  vocabulary  and  phrase  to  the 
work  of  other  men,  notably  that  of  Marlowe  and  Peele; 
many  also  to  Shakespeare's  own  plays  and  poems.   But 
I  think  weight  must  be  given  to  the  numerous  similes  and 
metaphors  from  natural  history  and  country  life,  some  of 
them  literary,  but  others  testifying  to  direct  observation. 
I  do  not  find  these  in  any  of  the  contemporaries  who.have 
been  called  in  question.  They  are  very  common  in  Venus 
and  Adonis  and  Lucrece.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  scraps 
of  Latin,  and  many  classical  allusions.  Richard  III  has  not 
the  erudition  and  not  much  natural  history,  except  for  the 
purposes  of  vituperation.  Did  Shakespeare  take  warning 
From  the  extent  to  which  both  features  were  *cut'  by  the 
actors  in  adapting  2,  3  Henry  VII 

Greene's  Groafsworth  of  Wit  parodies  3  Hen.  VI,  i.  4. 
137.  This  does  not  in  my  view  give  us  any  information 
about  the  authorship  of  the  line,  but  is  certainly  not  in- 
consistent with  Shakespeare's.  But  it  shows  that  the  play, 
and  naturally  also  2  Henry  VI>  were  in  existence  before 
Greene's  death  on  3  September  1592.  As  the  theatres  had 
probably  been  closed  since  June  23,  we  may  put  them  a 
little  farther  back.  The  title-page  of  the  Q  of  3  Henry  VI 
makes  it  a  play  of  Pembroke's  men*  Of  these  there  is  no 
trace  before  the  winter  of  1592-3,  and  some  other  com- 
pany may  have  been  the  original  producers.  The  plays  are 


288  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

not  in  Henslowe's  list  of  1592  for  'Strange's*  men,  and  if 
theirs  (cf.  infra)  can  hardly  be  later  than  1591.  The  stage- 
directions  of  3  Hen.  VI,  i.  2.  48;  iii.  i.  i,  have  'Gabriel' 
for  a  messenger  and  'Sinklo*  and  'Humfrey'  for  two 
keepers.  These  are  probably  the  actors  Gabriel  Spencer, 
John  Sincler,  and  Humphrey  Jeffes.  There  is  a  similar 
substitution  in  the  stage-directions  to  2  Hen.  VI,  iv.  2.  i. 
Here  among  Cade's  followers  are  'Beuis'  and  'lohn  Hol- 
land'. They  are  not  named  in  the  text,  although  editors 
have  chosen  to  take  thence  the  Christian  name  of  'George' 
for  Bevis,  But  John  Holland,  like  John  Sincler,  is  an 
actor  in  the  cast  (cf.  p.  44)  for  2  Seven  Deadly  Sins,  as 
played  by  Strange's  or  the  Admiral's  or  the  Alleyn  com- 
pany about  1590.  Spencer  and  Jeffes  are  not  in  that  cast. 
Of  Bevis  I  know  nothing,  but  probably  he  too  was  a  minor 
actor.  In  2  Hen.  VI,  ii,  3. 92,  the  Armourer  says,  'there- 
fore, Peter,  have  at  thee  with  a  downright  blow!',  and  Q 
adds,  *as  Bevys  of  South-hampton  fell  upon  Askapart*. 
Surely  Bevis  played  the  Armourer  as  well  as  a  rebel,  and 
this  is  a  bit  of  his  gag.  These  names,  interesting  as  they 
are,  prove  rather  elusive,  when  one  attempts  to  draw 
any  inference  from  them  as  to  the  original  ownership  of 
2,  3  Henry  VI.  All  the  five  actors  may  have  been  together 
in  the  Alleyn  company;  and  again  all  of  them  may  have 
passed  from  that  to  Pembroke's  in  1592.  That  Bevis  was 
in  Pembroke's  we  can  be  sure,  since  his  gag  comes  from 
a  reported  performance  by  them.  Neither  he  nor  Holland 
is  heard  of  later.  Sincler  probably  joined  the  Chamber- 
lain's men  in  1594,  as  he  is  in  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  and 
was  certainly  with  them  in  1597-8  and  in  1604.  But 
Spencer  and  probably  Jeffes  were  in  the  Pembroke's  com- 
pany of  1597,  and  thereafter  both  were  in  the  Admiral's 
company.  I  formerly  thought x  that  they  might  have  been 
Chamberlain's  men  during  1594-7,  but  the  recent  dis- 
coveries (cf.  p.  50}  of  evidence  for  a  Pembroke's  company 
in  1595-6  makes  this  now  seem  less  likely.  All  that  we 
can  say  with  certainty  is  that  the  F  texts  may  rest  upon 
prompt-copy  either  for  the  Alleyn  company  about  1 59 1  or 

Stage,  ii.  200. 


Chap.  IX  HENRY  THE  SIXTH  289 

for  the  Pembroke  company  about  1593,  and  that  the  Q 
texts  must  rest  on  performances  by  the  Pembroke  com- 
pany about  the  same  time.  I  suspect  that  the  report  was 
made  for  sale  to  the  printers  after  the  company  broke 
down  in  the  autumn  of  1593.  Dr.  Greg  suggests  to  me 
that  it  may  have  been  made  for  performances  earlier  in 
1  593,  and  I  am  content  to  leave  that  as  a  possible  alterna- 
tive. Somehow,  the  legitimate  prompt-copies  must  have 
passed,  from  the  Alleyn  company  on  Dr.  Greg's  theory,  or 
from  Pembroke's  on  mine,  to  the  Chamberlain's,  who  left 
the  old  actor-names  standing  in  them.  If  Sincler  did  not 
change  his  part,  they  could  pass  as  character  names,  or 
be  disregarded,  as  the  original  directions  and  prefixes 
would  be  still  legible.  A  revival  by  the  Chamberlain's  is 
pointed  to,  both  by  the  alterations  incorporated  in  the  F 
text  and  by  the  reference  in  the  epilogue  of  Henry  V  to 
Henry  the  Sixth: 

Whose  state  so  many  had  the  managing, 

That  they  lost  France,  and  made  his  England  bleed: 

Which  oft  our  stage  has  shown. 

It  may  have  been  later  than  the  record  of  Meres.  The 
plays,  as  revived,  seemed  old-fashioned  to  Jonson,  but  the 
date  of  his  reference  (App.  B,  no.  xxii)  is  not  certain. 
There  is  no  evidence  of  a  Jacobean  revival.  The  F  text 
shows  no  changes  due  to  the  Act  of  Abuses.  I  cannot 
explain  a  few  passages  in  which  Q3  varies  the  Qi  text  in 
the  direction  of  that  of  F.  Whether  derived  from  a  per- 
formance, or  from  the  information  of  the  author  or  the 
theatre,  they  hardly  justify  the  'newly  corrected  and  en- 
larged' of  the  title-page. 

The  historical  matter  seems  to  be  mainly  from  Holin- 
shed,  but  Halle,  Fabyan,  Grafton,  and  Stowe  may  also 
have  been  consulted.1 


This  is  a  very  different  problem.  There  is  no  Q.  F  has 
again  elaborate  stage-directions.  Those  in  i  often  have  the 
unusual  opening  'Here'.  The  scene-division  is  confined 

1  Bos-well-Stone,  xL  253. 
3142.1  u 


29o  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

to  iii  and  iv,  and  while  iv  is  twice  the  length  of  i  and  ii, 
v  is  a  single  scene  of  108  lines.  As  F  does  not  divide 
2y  3  Henry  VI  into  scenes  at  all,  these  indications  may  have 
been  taken  over  from  heterogeneous  'copy',  perhaps  in 
more  than  one  hand.  Moreover,  there  are  certainly  several 
styles  in  the  play.  Various  attempts  have  been  made  to 
disentangle  and  identify  them,  but  none  are  quite  satis- 
factory. I  group  the  scenes,  as  divided  in  modern  editions, 
in  the  following  sections:  (a}\.  i,  3;  ii.  5;  iii.  i,4;iv.  1,4; 
v.  i,4.94-end;(^)i.2,4-6;ii.  i-3;iii. 2-3;  iv.7.33-end; 
v.  2,  3. 1-44,  4. 1-93;  (0  iv.  3,  5,  6,  7. 1-32;  (d)  v.  3. 
45~end,  5;  (e)  ii.  4;  (/)  iv.  2.  Sections  (a)  and  (£)  contain 
the  bulk  of  the  play,  and  are  by  distinct  hands.  In  (a) 
the  matter  is  of  English  politics,  the  quarrels  of  Gloucester 
and  Winchester  and  of  Somerset  and  York;  it  looks  for- 
ward to  2>  3  Henry  VI^  and  the  style  more  nearly  resembles 
theirs  than  anything  else  in  the  play.  In  (£)  the  matter  is 
of  fighting  in  France  and  Joan  of  Arc.  It  is  in  a  very 
inferior  style,  with  many  flat  and  some  absurd  lines,  much 
tautology,  and  a  tendency  to  drag  in  learned  allusions. 
There  is  room  for  doubt  as  to  whether  a  few  colourless 
passages  about  Talbot  (i.  i.  103—47;  iii.  4.  1—27;  iv.  i. 
9-47;  iv.  4)  belong  to  (a)  or  (£).  But  I  do  not  understand 
how  Pollard  and  others  fail  to  appreciate  the  very  clear 
differentiation  between  (a)  and  (£)  during  the  greater  part 
of  i  and  ii.  And  I  think  that  the  same  hands  continue 
throughout.  Gaw,  however,  who  has  made  the  fullest 
study  of  the  play,  thinks  that  the  (£)  matter  passed  in  iii-v 
to  two  fresh  hands.  This  view  is  largely  based  upon 
differences  in  the  F  spelling,  of  proper  names,  as  to  which 
(c£  p.  232)  the  Elizabethan  practice  was  very  loose. 
Certainly  'Gloster*  and  'Glocester'  appear  within  a  few 
lines  of  each  other  in  a  perfectly  homogeneous  passage  of 
iii.  i.  I  cannot  therefore  attach  much  importance  to  the 
differences  between  'loane'and  *Ione*,  TuzeTancTPucelP, 
*Burgundie'  and  'Burgonie',  merely  because  they  are  used 
in  different  scenes.  Section  (r)  consists  of  the  Talbot  death- 
scenes,  which  are  largely  in  heroic  rhyme,  They  are  often 
claimed  for  Shakespeare,  but  on  the  whole  I  think  it  is 


Chap.  IX  HENRY  THE  SIXTH  291 

more  likely  that  they  are  by  the  author  of  (b\  and  the 
duplication  of  a  tasteless  comparison  of  Talbot  and  his 
son  to  Daedalus  and  Icarus  favours  this.   But  if  so,  the 
(£)  man  was  a  better  hand  at  rhyme  than  at  blank  verse. 
Section  (*/),  containing  the  Suffolk  and  Margaret  scenes, 
also  points  forward  to  2,  3  Henry  VI.    I  think  it  is  by  a 
third  hand.  Shakespeare's  presence  is  only  clear  to  me  in 
(i),  the  Temple  garden  scene,  and  (/),  an  unrhymed  Talbot 
scene  leading  up  to  (c).  These  I  take  to  be  new  scenes, 
written  in  or  later  than  1594.  Probably  both  replaced  scenes 
of  the  original  play;  almost  certainly  (e)  did,  as  later  pas- 
sages carry  on  the  motive  of  the  roses.  Some  would  add 
ii.  5,  the  scene  with  Mortimer  in  the  Tower,  but  this 
I  take  to  be  the  best  of  the  (a)  scenes.   It  has  very  few 
double  endings,  although  that  is  not  conclusive  against 
Shakespeare  in  a  single  scene.  As  to  the  authorship  of  the 
original  play,  I  feel  no  assurance.  If  Shakespeare  is  in  it 
at  all,  it  must  be  in  (a).  The  evidence  of  F  is  not  very 
strong  here,  since  clearly  by  1  623  the  piece  was  regarded 
as  an  integral  part  of  his  Henry  VI.  The  style  of  (a)  might 
be  a  first  stage  in  the  development  (cf.  supra)  up  to  Richard 
III.  It  is  Marlowesque,  and  might  also,  as  some  think,  be 
Marlowe's,   The  percentage  of  double  endings  (8  %)  is 
high  for  Marlowe,  and  lower  than  that  of  2,  3  Henry  VI. 
If,  however,  as  seems  likely  (cf.  infra),  i  Henry  VI  followed 
these,  an  attribution  of  (a)  to  Shakespeare  is  much  less 
plausible.   In  any  case  I  do  not  think  it  necessary  to  as- 
sume, with  Gaw  and  others,  that  he  touched  up'  the  work 
of  other  men  in  the  play,  merely  because  a  few  lines  here 
and  there  are  better  or  more  like  him  than  the  rest.  Hart, 
who  disregards  the  distinction  between  (a)  and  (£),  finds 
Greene  predominant  in  i  and  ii.  This  I  much  mistrust. 
The  parallels  quoted  are  very  slight,  and  Greene's  only 
extant  history-play,  James  IV^  is  of  a  very  different  type. 
If  Greene  is  in  the  play,  (<?)  seems  more  like  him.  But 
I  should  be  surprised  to  find  him  writing  for  Alleyn's 
company  after  the  Orlando  Furioso  swindle,1  and  in  the 
Groatsworth  he  seems  aloof  from  his  fellow  dramatists 


n.  325. 

U  2 


292  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

as  well  as  from  the  players.  Gaw  finds  Peele  in  some  of 
the  (£)  scenes,  and  I  see  no  obvious  reason  why  he  should 
not  have  written  them  all,  with  the  Talbot  scenes.  He 
uses  rhyme  in  other  plays,  and  the  nationalist  tone  is  like 
him.  On  the  other  hand,  some  of  his  characteristic 
mannerisms  are  not  very  apparent.  Nashe,  Lodge,  and 
Kyd  have  also  been  speculated  upon,  and  of  course  Chap- 
man by  Robertson. 

Nashe,  in  his  Pierce  Penniless,  registered  on  8  August 
1592,  records  the  triumph  on  the  stage  of  *braue  Talbot 
(the  terror  of  the  French)1,  whom  the  spectators  beheld 
'fresh  bleeding'.1  I  do  not  think  that  any  inference  can 
be  drawn  for  or  against  his  own  share  in  the  authorship. 
But  the  date  helps  to  identify  the  play  with  the  *Harey 
the  vj*  produced  by  Strange's  men  for  Henslowe  (App.  D) 
on  3  March  1592.  It  was  *ne'  and  probably  therefore  either 
actually  new,  or  substantially  remodelled.  Evidently  the 
death  of  Talbot  was  already  a  prominent  feature.  Pollard 
thinks  that  behind  i  Henry  VI^  as  we  now  have  it,  is  an 
original  Joan  of  Arc  play  by  two  hands,  altered  at  a  first 
stage  by  the  insertion  of  the  Talbot  death-scenes,  and  at 
a  later  by  the  garden,  tower,  and  Margaret  scenes,  as  links 
to  an  already  existing  York  and  Lancaster.  It  may  be  so. 
But  the  rivalry  between  York  and  Somerset  is  wanted  in  the 
play  itself  to  explain  the  abandonment  of  Talbot  (iv.  3,  4). 
And  there  are  passages  in  other  scenes  than  those  named 
by  Pollard  which  seem  closely  linked  to  2,  3  Henry  VI\ 
bits  about  the  roses  (iii.  4;  iv.  i);  the  disputes  of 
Gloucester  and  Winchester  (i.  i,  3;  iii,  i;  v.  i),  which 
lead  to  little  here,  but  seem  suggested  by  the  'ancient 
bickerings'  of  2  Hen.  VI^  i.  1. 144,  although  indeed  this 
might  be  argued  either  way  as  to  priority;  a  passing 
allusion  (i.  i.  39)  to  the  duchess  of  Gloucester,  so  promi- 
nent in  the  later  play;  the  prophecies  (i.  I.  48 ;  iii.  1.187; 
iv.  i.  182;  iv.  3.  47)  of  the  choric  Bedford,  Exeter,  and 
Lucy.  It  is  at  least  as  tenable  a  theory  that  the  whole 
thing,  except  Shakespeare's  two  later  scenes,  was  put  to- 
gether in  1 592,  to  exploit  an  earlier  theme  which  had  been 

1  Cf.  £#5.  Stagf>  iv.  238. 


Chap.  IX  HENRY  THE  SIXTH  293 

successful.  Even  so  the  Admiral's  men  in  1599,  after 
producing  three  parts  of  The  Civil  Wan  of  France >  wound 
up  with  an  Introduction  to  the  Civil  Wars  of  France.1  A 
multiplicity  of  authors  is  sufficient  to  account  for  the  odd 
scening  of  the  'copy*  for  F,  as  well  as  for  the  numerous 
inconsistencies  of  action  in  the  play,  even  if  some  of  these 
authors  were  not  individually  careless.  Tentatively,  there- 
fore, I  ascribe  2,  3  Henry  VI  to  1591  and  i  Henry  VI  to 
1592.  Presumably  i  Henry  VI  shared  in  the  revival  in- 
dicated by  the  epilogue  to  Henry  V>  for  which  the  present 
ii.  4  and  iv.  2  may  have  been  written. 

There  is  an  interesting  bit  of  staging  in  the  use  of  the 
'top'  in  i.  4  and  iii.  2,2  but  I  do  not  accept  Gaw's  elaborate 
argument  to  show  that  this  was  a  new  structural  feature 
first  invented  at  the  Rose  in  1592,  or  think  with  him  that 
it  was  the  loft  from  which  the  theatre's  flag  waved  and  its 
trumpet  was  blown.  Nothing  here  could  come  into  the 
action  of  a  play,  in  view  of  the  intervention  of  the  project- 
ing 'heavens'.  The  'top'  must  have  been  over  the  stage 
balcony,  on  a  level  with  the  upper  row  of  galleries,  as  the 
balcony  itself  was  on  a  level  with  the  middle  row.  Halle, 
Holinshed,  and  Fabyan  seem  all  to  have  been  drawn  upon 
for  the  historical  matter.*  The  recital  of  Talbot's  dignities 
in  iv.  7  comes  from  his  epitaph  at  Rouen,  of  which 
there  are  later  printed  versions  in  R,  Crompton's  Mansion 
of  Magnanimitie  (1599),  and  R.  Broke's  Catalogue  and 
Succession  of  the  .  .  Earks  .  .  of  England  (1619).*  But 
travellers  went  to  Rouen,  although  Essex  and  his  soldiers 
failed  to  take  it  in  1591,  The  chronology  throughout  the 
play  is  much  perverted.  Foreshortening  was  inevitable, 
since  Henry  could  not  well  be  presented  on  the  stage  as  a 
child  at  the  beginning  of  the  play  and  marriageable  at  the 
end. 

1  EB&.  Stage,  ii.  169.  Boswell-Stone,  xi. 

*  Cf.  ibU.  iii.  98.  #«£  233- 


294  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

IV.   RICHARD  THE  THIRD 

[S.R.  1597.]  20  Octobris.  Andrewe  Wise.  Entred  for 
his  copie  vnder  thandes  of  master  Barlowe,  and  master 
warden  Man.  The  tragedie  of  kinge  Richard  the  Third 
with  the  death  of  the  Duke  of  Clarence  vjd  (Arber,  iii.  93). 

[QI-I.597-]  [Ornament]  The  Tragedy  Of  King  Richard 
the  third.  Containing,  His  treacherous  Plots  against  his 
brother  Clarence :  the  pittiefull  murther  of  his  iunocent  (sic) 
nephewes:  his  tyrannicall  vsurpation:  with  the  whole 
course  of  his  detested  life,  and  most  deserued  death.  As 
it  hath  beene  lately  Acted  by  the  Right  honourable  the 
Lord  Chamberlaine  his  seruants.  [Ornament]  At  London 
IT  Printed  by  Valentine  Sims,  for  Andrew  Wise,  dwelling 
in  Paules  Chuch-yard  (sic}y  at  the  Signe  of  the  Angell. 
1597.  [No  Head-title.  Running-title}  The  Tragedy  of 
Richard  the  third. 

Facsimiles.  W.  Griggs  (1886,  Sh.  Q.  »,  ed.  P.  A.  Daniel);  J.  S. 
Farmer  (1913,  T.F.T.  from  Ashbee). 

[Q2-  ?5980  The  Tragedie  of  King  Richard  the  third. 
Conteining  his  treacherous  Plots  against  his  brother 
Clarence:  the  pitiful  murther  of  his  innocent  Nephewes: 
his  tyrannicall  vsurpation:  with  the  whole  course  of  his 
detested  life,  and  most  deserued  death.  As  it  hath  beene 
lately  Acted  by  the  Right  honourable  the  Lord  Chamber- 
laine his  seruants.  By  William  Shake-speare.  [Creede's 
device  (McKerrow  299)]  London  Printed  by  Thomas 
Creede,  for  Andrew  Wise,  dwelling  in  Paules  Church- 
yard, at  the  signe  of  the  AngelL  1598.  [No  Head-title. 
Running-title'}  The  Tragedie  of  Richard  the  third. 
[Q3-  5602.]  The  Tragedie  of  King  Richard  the  third. 
Conteining  his  treacherous  Plots  against  his  brother 
Clarence:  the  pittifull  murther  of  his  innocent  Nephewes: 
his  tyrannical  vsurpation:  with  the  whole  course  of  his 
detested  life,  and  most  deserued  death.  As  it  hath  bene 
lately  Acted  by  the  Right  Honourable  the  Lord  Cham- 
berlaine his  seruants.  Newly  augmented,  By  William 
Shakespeare.  [Creedes  device  (McKerrow  299)]  London. 
Printed  by  Thomas  Creede,  for  Andrew  Wise,  dwelling 


Chap.  IX  RICHARD  THE  THIRD  295 

in  Panics  Church-yard,  at  the  signe  of  the  Angell.  1602. 
[No  Head-title.  Running-title}  The  Tragedie  of  Richard 
the  Third. 

[There  are  no  augmentations] 

Facsimile.  C.  Praetorius  (1888,  Sh.  Q.  xlii,  ed.  P.  A.  Daniel). 
[S.R.  1603.]  25.  Junii  Mathew  Lawe.  Entred  for  his 
copies  in  full  courte  Holden  this  Day.  These  ffyve  copies 
followinge  ijs  vjd  viz.  iij  enterludes  or  playes.  The  ffirst 
is  of  Richard  the  .3.  ...  all  kinges  . .  all  whiche  by  con- 
sent of  the  Company  are  sett  ouer  to  him  from  Andrew 
Wyse.  (Arber,  iii.  239.) 

[Q4.  1605.]  The  Tragedie  of  King  Richard  the  third. 
Conteining  his  treacherous  Plots  against  his  brother 
Clarence:  the  pittifull  murther  of  his  innocent  Nephewes: 
his  tyrannicall  vsurpation :  with  the  whole  course  of  his 
detested  life,  and  most  deserued  death.  As  it  hath  bin 
lately  Acted  by  the  Right  Honourable  the  Lord  Cham- 
berlaine  his  seruants.  Newly  augmented,  By  William 
Shake-speare.  [Creede's  device  (McKerrow  2  9 9)]  London, 
Printed  by  Thomas  Creede,  and  are  to  be  sold  by  Mathew 
Lawe,  dwelling  in  Paules  Church-yard,  at  the  Signe  of  the 
Foxe,  neare  S.  Austins  gate,  1 605.  [No  Head-title.  Run- 
ning-title'} The  Tragedie  of  Richard  the  third. 

[£5. 1612.]  The  Tragedieof  King  Richard  The  Third 

As  it  hath  beene  lately  Acted  by  the  Kings  Majesties 
seruants  ...  1612.  [Otherwise  the  same  as  Q[4.] 

[Q6.  1 622.]  The  Tragedie  Of  King  Richard  The  Third. 
Contayning  his  treacherous  Plots  against  his  brother 
Clarence:  The  pittifull  murder  of  his  innocent  Nephewes: 
his  tyrannicall  Vsurpation:  with  the  whole  course  of  his 
detested  life,  and  most  deserued  death.  As  it  hath  been 
lately  Acted  by  the  Kings-  Maiesties  Seruants.  Newly 
augmented.  By  William  Shake-speare.  [Ornament]  Lon- 
don, Printed  by  Thomas  Purfoot,  and  are  to  be  sold  by 
Mathew  Law,  dwelling  In  Pauls  Church-yard,  at  the 
Signeof  the  Foxe,  neere  S»  Austines  gate,  1 622.  [No  Head- 
title.  Running-title'}  The  Tragedie  of  Richard  the  Third. 
Facsimile.  C.  Praetorius  (1889,  Sh.  Q.  xliii,  ed.  P.  A.  Daniel). 


296  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

[Fi.  1623.]  [Catalogue}  The  Life  &  Death  of  Richard 
the  Third.  [Histories,  pp,  173-204,  sign,  q  £-t  2V.  Head- 
title]  The  Tragedy  of  Richard  the  Third:  with  the 
Landing  of  Earle  Richmond,  and  the  Battell  at  Bosworth 
Field.  [Running-title'] .  The  Life  and  Death  of  Richard  the 
Third. 

[Acts  and  sec  marked  (altered  in  modern  eds.).] 
Later  Quartos.  1 629  (John  Norton,  sold  by  Mathew  Lawe);  1634 
(John  Norton). 

Parallel-Text.  E.  A.  Calkins  (1891,  Bankside). 
Modern  Editions.  W.  A.  Wright  (1880,  O.U.P.)',  G.  Macdonald 
(i 896,  Warwick),  A.  H. Thompson  (i 907,  Arden}\ . H.  H.  Furness, 
jun.  (1908,  New  Var.}\  J.  R.  Crawford  (1927,  Tale). 

[Dissertations.  W.  OechelhaOser,  Essay  uterR.  ///(i 868,  J. iii.  27;  1 894, 
Shakespeareana}\  N.  Delius,  Vberden  ursprilnglichen  Text  des  R.  Ill  (1872, 
J.  vii.  124;  Abl.  i.  234);  F.  G.  Fleay,  Who  Wrote  Hen.  71  ?  (1875,  Macmil- 
lan*s)\  J.  Spedding,  On  the  Corrected  Edition  ofR.  7/7(1875,  N.S.S.  Trans. 
i);  E.  H.  Pickersgill,  On  the  Q  and  the  F  ofR.  Ill  (1875,  N.S.S.  Trans.  77); 
R.  Koppel,  Textkritische  Studien  iiber  Bhs  R.  Ill  und  Lear  (1877);  A. 
Schmidt,  gf  und  F.  von  R.  Ill  (1880,  J.  xv.  301);  K.  Fischer,  Sis 
CharakterentwickelungR.  777  (2nd  ed.  1889);  G.  B.  Churchill,  R.  Ill  up  to 
8k.  (1900);  K.  Schmidt,  Margareta  von  Anjou>  vor  und  bei  Sk.  (1906); 
O.Pape,  UberdieEntstehungderQivonR.IH(i^6), Die QivonR.III 
ein  stenographist  Rau&druck  (1906,  Arch.  f.  Stenographic,  Ivii.  1 5  2,  1 86, 
241);  R,  A.  Law,  R.  777,  /.  4  (1912,  P.M.L.4.  xxvii.  ir7);  W.  D. 
Moriarty,  The  Bearing  on  Dramatic  Sequence  of  the  Paria  in  R.  Ill  and  Lear 
(1913,  M.P.  x.  451);  0.  J.  Campbell,  A  Dutch  Analogue  ofR.  Ill  (1916, 
Wisconsin  Studies,  231);  A.  W.  Pollard,  The  Tork  and  Lancaster  Plays  in  Fx 
(1918,  Sept.  19,  26,  T.Z.&);  J.  M.  Robertson,  The  Authorship  of  R.  Ill 
(1922,  Si.  Canon,  i.  155);  P.  Alexander,  S&.'sH.  /7and  R.  7/7(1929).] 

Each  Q,  other  than  Q$y  is  reprinted  from  its  immediate 
predecessor.  There  are  occasional  corrections,  not  involv- 
ing reference  to  a  manuscript,  and  a  progressive  accumu- 
lation of  errors.  Q$  appears  sometimes  to  follow  £4  and 
sometimes  £3.  The  use  of  both,  or  of  a  copy  made  up  of 
sheets  from  each,  has  been  suggested*  It  seems  also 
possible  that  the  sheets  of  £4  may  have  been  corrected 
during  printing,  and  some  form,  not  collated,  used  as 
copy  for  Q5.  Fi  repeats  many  errors  of  the  later  Qq  and 
one  of  them  must  have  been  used  to  print  from;  doubtless 
Q6,  as  several  of  these  errors  are  not  in  the  other  Qq. 


Chap.  IX  RICHARD  THE  THIRD  297 

On  the  other  hand,  the  differences  between  Fi  and  all  the 
Qq  are  so  great  as  to  point  clearly  to  alteration  of  the  Q6 
basis  from  a  manuscript  source.  Q i  and  Fi  must  therefore 
be  regarded  as  distinct  texts.  The  main  differences  are  as 
follows.  F  has  about  230  lines  which  are  not  in  Q.  Of 
these  about  half  are  in  six  considerable  passages  (1.2.1 56- 
67;  ii.  2.  89-100,  123-40;  iii.  7.  144-53;  iv.  4.  221-34, 
288—342).  They  form  parts  of  long  speeches  or  long 
sections  of  dialogue,  do  not  differ  in  style  from  the  rest  of 
the  play,  fit  in  without  awkward  joints,  and  in  some  cases 
leave  the  context  abrupt  or  less  effective  when  omitted. 
The  other  special  F  lines  form  short  dispersed  passages, 
often  single  lines.  Q  has  about  forty  lines  not  in  F,  simi- 
larly dispersed,  except  one  passage  (iv.  2. 101-19),  which 
again  fits  well  into  its  context.  A  few  passages  show  small 
transpositions  of  order,  and  the  prose  of  Clarence's  mur- 
derers in  i.  4.  84—161,  most  of  which  is  correctly  given  in 
F,  is  capitalized  throughout  as  verse  in  Q.  But  in  the 
main  the  texts,  agree  in  arrangement,  speech  for  speech, 
and  even  line  for  line.  There  is,  however,  much  divergence 
in  phrasing,  which,  after  allowing  for  numerous  misprints 
in  both  texts  and  the  influence  of  Q6  on  Fi,  disappears 
from  iii.  i.  1—157  and  from  v.  3.  79  onwards.  A  word  of 
one  text  is  often  represented  in  the  other  by  a  synonym  or 
the  same  word  in  a  different  number,  case,  mood,  or  tense. 
Often  a  word  is  repeated  in  Q  and  another  is  substituted 
for  the  repetition  in  F.  There  is  some  tendency  to  uni- 
formity in  variation.  The  which^  betwixt^  whilst  of  Q  are 
several  times  replaced  by  tkat^  between^  while,  or  when  in 
F.  The  same  words  are  differently  ordered  within  a  line. 
Or  the  wording  of  one  text  is  a  complete  paraphrase  of  the 
sense  given  in  the  other;  A  metrically  normal  ten-syllable 
line  in  F  often  represents  one  in  Q  which  has  one  or  more 
extra  syllables.  Shakespeare,  of  course,  uses  trisyllabic 
feet  and  six-foot  lines,  but  many  of  these  in  Q  are  harsh, 
and  occasionally  the  abnormality  seems  due  to  the  intru- 
sion of  an  exclamatory  or  other  'connective'  word,  such  as 
actors  introduce  to  accompany  their  gestures.  These  facts 
are  capable  of  more  than  one  explanation,  and  there  are 


298  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

broadly  two  views  as  to  the  relation  between  Q  and  F 
which  they  may  indicate.  It  has  been  held  that  Q  repre- 
sents the  original  text  of  the  play,  and  F  a  later  revision 
by  Shakespeare  or  some  other  hand.  And  it  has  been  held 
that  F  represents  the  original  text  and  Q  either  a  revision 
for  stage  purposes  or  a  corrupt  report  of  the  play  as 
staged.  It  generally  goes  with  the  first  theory  that  the 
special  F  passages  were  added  on  revision  and  with  the 
second  that  they  were  'cut1  in  representation.  I  do  not 
suppose  that  any  very  simple  formula  will  explain  every- 
thing. But  substantially  I  regard  the  second  theory  as 
sound.  In  particular  the  suggested  stylistic  revision  seems 
to  me  out  of  the  question.  There  has  been  much  incon- 
clusive discussion  as  to  the  respective  literary  merits  of 
bits  of  Q  and  F  wording.  On  balance,  I  think  that  F  is  the 
better  of  the  two;  and  so  it  might  well  be  on  either  theory. 
But  the  difference  of  value,  for  stage  purposes  at  least,  is 
negligible.  And  I  cannot  reconcile  with  any  reasonable 
conception  of  Shakespeare's  methods  of  work  a  revision 
limited  to  the  smoothing  out  of  metre  and  the  substitution 
of  equivalent  words,  without  any  incorporation  of  any  new 
structure  or  any  new  ideas.  Nor  can  I  think  that  either 
Shakespeare  or  any  one  else  at  the  theatre  would  have 
•  thought  it  either  worth  while  or  practicable  to  make  actors 
relearn  their  parts  with  an  infinity  of  trivial  modifications. 
Still  less  can  I,  with  Pollard,  suppose  that  Shakespeare 
revised  the  F  into  the  Q  form. 

The  history  of  the  text  must,  I  think,  be  somewhat  as 
follows.  The  play,  as  written  by  Shakespeare,  was  slightly 
altered  for  stage  purposes.  It  was  shortened  by  cutting 
six  long  passages.  Minor  alterations  were  made  to  enable 
certain  scenes  (u  4;  iL  i,  4;  iii.  4,  5;  v.  i,  2,  3)  to  be  played 
with  a  reduced  number  of  minor  parts.  Incidentally  these 
account  for  a  few  of  the  lesser  passages  omitted  in  Q,  and 
in  connexion  with  them  some  small  corrections  of  nomen- 
clature and  topography  (i.  3.  333;  ii.  I.  7,  66)  seem  to 
have  been  made  in  the  text.  Qi  was  based  on  this  stage- 
version.  I  do  not  think  that  it  was  'surreptitious',  in  the 
sense  of  being  printed  without  the  consent  of  the  Chamber- 


Chap.  IX  RICHARD  THE  THIRD  299 

Iain's  men.    There  is  nothing  in  the  circumstances  of  the 
publication  to  suggest  irregularity.  Certainly  some  of  the 
textual  features — omissions,  paraphrases,  substitution  of 
equivalent  words,  incorporation  of  actor's  'connectives' 
— are  such  as  appear  in  'reported'  plays,  and  there  are 
some  'auditory'  errors.  But  the  text,  and  in  particular 
the  lineation,  is  so  much  better  than  that  of  the  accepted 
'bad'  quartos,  as  to  suggest  the  use  of  a  transcript  from  the 
original.  It  must,  of  course,  have  been  a  bad  transcript,  to 
explain  the  verbal  divergences  from  F.  I  suggest  that  it 
was  specially  prepared  by  the  book-keeper  for  the  printer. 
Possibly  the  original  was  required  at  the  time  for  represen- 
tations. The  book-keeper  adopted  the  alterations  marked 
on  the  original  for  stage  purposes.    His   transcription, 
except  for  accesses  of  conscience  at  iii.  I.  I  and'v.  3.  79, 
was  done  carelessly.  He  was  familiar  with  the  play,  which 
he  had  prompted,  and  although  he  generally  checked  the 
succession  of  lines,  in  writing  them  out  he  often  allowed 
himself  to  follow  their  purport  as  he  had  heard  them,  thus 
vulgarizing  the  style,  and  producing  in  a  minor  degree  the 
features  of  a  reported  text.  An  occasional  transference  by 
memory  from  some  other  part  of  the  play  (ii.  2.  24  from  i. 
4. 252 ;  iv.  4.  507  from  iv,  3. 48 ;  iv.  4. 235  from  iv.  4. 398) 
is  particularly  significant.    Responsibility  for  the  omis- 
sion of  stray  lines  the  transcriber  must  perhaps  share  with 
the  Q  printer.    Shakespeare's  original  remained  at  the 
theatre,  marked  perhaps  for  the  stage  adaptation,  but 
without  further  alteration,  except  the  usual  perfunctory 
excision  of  some  of  the  profanity  for  a  Jacobean  revival. 
In  1623  it  was  made  available  for  the  correction  of  a  Q6 
as  copy  for  F,  with  instructions  to  restore  the  passages  cut 
or  altered  for  the  stage,  but  not  the  oaths.  The  correction 
was  not  perfectly  done,  and  the  result  was  not  perfectly 
printed.  Among  the  errors  were  the  omissions  of  a  few  Q 
lines,  including  iv.  2.  101-19*  Possibly  an  editor,  or  no 
more  than  a  press-corrector,  may  have  made  a  few  altera- 
tions, by  conjecture,  as  printers  of  the  successive  Qq  had 
done,  or  to  bring  into  conformity  with  what  he  regarded 
as  current  usage.  A  substitution,  perhaps  only  by  mis- 


300  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

print,  of -'Pursuing'  for  'Ensuing'  in  ii.  3. 43  has  left  a  trace 
in  a  catch-word.  The  respective  stage-directions  of  Q  and 
F  are  consistent  with  this  view  of  the  relation  between 
the  texts.   Those  of  F  are  rather  more  elaborate  than  is 
usual  in  Shakespearean  texts,  although  less  so  than  those 
of  2,  3  Henry  FL   They  include  some  for  attiring  or  the 
use  of  properties,  some  indicating  the  scope  of  an  opening 
scene,  and  some  in  the  margin  for  details  of  action.  These 
look  to  me  more  like  the  work  of  an  author  familiar  with 
the  stage  than  of  a  producer.   But  a  producer  may  have 
added  the  numerous  notes  for  the  use  of  musical  instru- 
ments. The  directions  of  Q  are  clearly  related  to  those  of 
F,  but  vary  in  detail.  Generally,  but  not  always,  they  are 
shorter.  Thus  at  iii.  5.  i  F  has  'Enter  Richard,  and  Buck- 
ingham, in  rotten  Armour,  maruellous  ill-fauoured',  but 
Q  merely  'Enter  Duke  of  Glocester  and  Buckingham  in 
armour'.     I   think   the   transcribing   book-keeper   has 
abridged.    It  is  certainly  less  likely  that  an  editor  of  F 
added  descriptive  touches  for  readers.  An  exceptionally 
literary  note  is  at  v.  3.  237,  where  the  first  line  of 
Richmond's  speech  is  followed  by  the  heading  'His  Ora- 
tion to  his  Souldiers'.  But  this  is  in  Q  as  well  as  F,  and 
in  fact  it  is  F,  not  Q,  which  omits  at  v.  3.  314  the  corre- 
sponding heading  in  Richard's  speech,  'His  Oration  to  his 
army*.  Ferhaps  something  should  be  said  of  the  curious 
note  'Newly  augmented'  on  the  title-page  of  Q3.  There 
are  no  augmentations.    It  may  be  merely  a  publisher's 
lure.   I  do  not  think  it  can  be  pressed  as  meaning  that 
when  sheet  A,  containing  the  title-page,  was  printed  in 
1602,  the  publisher  knew  of  a  recent  revision,  new  pas- 
sages from  which  he  hoped,  but  afterwards  failed,  to  get. 
He  may  just  as  well  have  contemplated  an  augmentation 
not  of  the  play,  but  of  his  book,  by  adding  passages  of  the 
original  known  to  have  been  omitted  from  earlier  Qq. 
The  'new  additions*  to  £3  of  Richard  II  were  of  such 
original  matter.  It  has  also  been  suggested  that  the  words 
added  in  1 602  ought  to  have  appeared  in  1 597,  as  an  indi- 
cation that  Richard  III  as  a  whole  was  Shakespeare's  aug- 
mentation of  an  earlier  pky.  This  seems  to  me  desperate 


Chap.  IX  RICHARD  THE  THIRD  301 

'Newly*  could  not  be  so  used  for  the  first  time  in  1602, 
although  if  it  had  appeared  on  an  earlier  title-page  it  might 
have  been  repeated  without  alteration. 

If  a  hand  other  than  Shakespeare's  is  to  be  found  in 
Richard  III,  it  must  be  upon  different  grounds.  Coleridge 
once,  but  not  consistently,  doubted  the  genuineness  of  the 
play.  But  the  scepticism  of  some  recent  writers  seems  to 
be  traceable  to  the  influence  of  Fleay,  who  in  1 875  thought 
that  the  play  was  left  unfinished  by  Peele  and  completed 
and  revised  by  Shakespeare,  in  1881  substituted  Marlowe 
and  Peele  for  Peele,  in  1886  substituted  Marlowe  alone, 
but  did  not  'think  it  possible  to  separate  Shakespeare's 
work  from  Marlowe's',  and  in  1891  added  Drayton  as  a 
reviser  for  F.  The  theory  in  all  its  phases  is  but  slightly 
argued.  It  is  largely  a  matter  of  subjective  impression. 
But  stress  is  laid  upon  variations  of  nomenclature  in  text 
and  speech-prefixes  as  evidence  for  two  hands.  Such 
variations  seem  to  me  (cf.  p.  232)  a  constant  feature  of 
Shakespeare's  work.  Pollard  thinks  the  incorrect  use  of 
'Derby'  for  'Stanley'  in  certain  scenes  evidential.  But  his 
two  hands  are  not  Marlowe's  and  Shakespeare's;  they  are 
those  of  Peele,  to  whom  he  ascribes  at  least  iii.  I.  1—157, 
and  of  a  'dull'  man,  found  also  in  the  True  Tragedy.  Shake- 
speare, besides  revising  the  F  form  into  the  Q  form,  added 
the  opening  soliloquy,  with  i.  2  and  perhaps  the  Mar- 
garet scenes,  as  audacious  and  splendid  afterthoughts.  If  I 
have  understood  the  view  rightly,  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile 
it  with  the  obvious  presence  of  these  passages  in  the 
manuscript  used  for  Fi.  Robertson  is  a  thorough-going 
sceptic.  For  him  the  play  is  Marlowe's,  with  'primary 
collaboration'  by  Kyd  in  certain  scenes.  Heywood  did 
*a  good  deal  of  later  eking  out  and  expanding'.  But 
Shakespeare,  'however  much  he  may  have  revised,  con- 
tributes only  some  six  or  seven  speeches,  some  of  them 
very  short'*  The  denial  of  Shakespeare  is  again  based  upon 
subjective  impressions  that  the  style  and  psychology  are 
too  'primitive*  to  be  his,  and  so  different  from  that  of 
such  other  plays  as  Robertson  is  prepared  to  allow  him,  as 
to  exclude  a  common  authorship.  There  are  constant 


302  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

assertions,  not  convincing  to  me  in  detail,  that  such  and 
such  lines  cannot  be  Shakespeare's.    There  is  a  theory, 
which  I  think  quite  unfounded  (cf.  p.  224),  that  Marlowe  is 
more  likely  than  Shakespeare  to  have  written,  at  the  date 
of 'Richard  III \  a  play  with  so  large  a  proportion  of  double 
endings.  Similarly,  it  is  stylistic  impression,  with  the  help 
of  the  unreliable   'clues'   afforded   by  echoes,   mainly 
verbal,  from  other  plays,  which  directs  Robertson  to  his 
substitutes.  There  is  no  attempt  to  disentangle  completely 
the  contributions  of  Marlowe,  Kyd,  and  Heywood.   We 
are  invited  to  see  the  hand,  now  of  one,  now  of  another.  It 
is  pointed  out  that  Heywood  duplicates  certain  episodes  of 
Richard  Him  Edward  IF.  He  is  called  a  'docile  imitator', 
and  it  is  indeed  probable  that  he  is  here  docilely  imitating. 
I  do  not  myself  think  (cf.  p.  223)  that  we  have  any  assured 
criterion  for  distinguishing  on  internal  grounds  between 
the  diction,  about  1593,  of  Shakespeare  on  the  one  hand, 
and  those  of  Marlowe,  Peele,  and  Kyd  on  the  other;  and 
it  is  therefore  unsafe  on  such  grounds  to  disregard  the 
strong  external  evidence  for  his  authorship.  Nor  do  I  see 
any  adequate  reason  for  assuming  two  hands.  There  are 
'dull*  scenes,  but  the  style  is  uniform  throughout.   It  is 
a  highly  mannered  rhetorical  style,  extravagant  in  utter- 
ance, with  many  appeals  and  exclamations.  There  is  much 
violent  and  vituperative  speech;  the  word  'blood'  runs  like 
a  leit-motif  through  the  play.    Epithets,  and  sometimes 
nouns,  are  piled  up,  in  pairs,  with  or  without  a  conjunction ; 
in  triplets  or  even  greater  numbers*    Types  of  line- 
structure  tend  to  recur.  One  is  based  on  such  a  triplet; 
another  is  the  'balanced*  line,  of  noun  and  epithet  against 
Goun  and  epithet.  A  'clinching'  line  at  the  end  of  a  speech 
is  also  common.    There  are  'cumulative*  passages  of 
parallel  lines  with  parisonic  beginnings  or  ending.   Words 
and  phrases  are  repeated  for  emphasis.   There  is  much 
'ringing  of  the  changes*  on  individual  words,  between 
line  and  line  and  speech  and  speech.   Sometimes  this  is 
progressive,  as  new  words  are  introduced.  Sometimes  it 
takes  the  form  of  a  bitter  pun.  There  is  rhetorical  struc- 
ture, in  antithesis  antiphon,  stichomythia.  Some  of  it  is 


Chap.  IX  RICHARD  THE  THIRD  303 

ultimately  of  Senecan  origin.  All  these  features  occur  in- 
dividually in  pre-Shakespearean  plays  and  recur  in  later 
Shakespearean  plays,  with  diminishing  frequency.  But  I 
do  not  think  that  they  are  quite  so  massed  and  multiplied 
elsewhere.  I  find  nothing  here  which  might  not  be 
Shakespeare,  at  an  early  stage  of  development,  and  while 
he  is  still  much  under  the  influence  of  his  predecessors. 
Perhaps  I  should  make  a  qualification.  I  am  not  certain 
that  the  extremely  ineffective  speeches  of  the  ghosts 
(v.  3. 1 1 8-76)  may  not  be  a  spectacular  theatrical  addition^ 
Certainly  the  psychology  is  'primitive',  as  compared  with 
that  of  later  plays.  It  is  in  the  key  and  at  the  distance  from 
life  of  melodrama,  not  tragedy.  But  its  resemblance  to  that 
of  Marlowe  is  not  close.  The  concentrated  remorselessness 
of  Richard  recalls  him,  of  course,  and  so  does  the  choric 
Margaret,  in  his  earlier  work  rather  than  in  Edward  //, 
which  must  be  the  nearest  in  date  to  Richard  III.  But  his 
presentation  of  character  offers  no  parallel  to  the  vivid 
analysis  of  the  many-sided  Richard,  with  his  grim  humour 
of  introspection,  his  audacities  and  levities  of  speech,  his 
irony  and  mock  humility,  his  plausibility  and  adroitness, 
his  histrionics  and  sense  of  dramatic  effect.  Nor  is  Mar- 
lowe's the  give  and  take  of  the  dialogue,  in  which  speeches 
are  not  merely  juxtaposed  but  articulated,  as  the  ideas  of  one 
disputant  provoke  and  determine  those  of  the  next.  It  is 
a  natural  and  improvised,  rather  than  a  prepared, 
dialogue. 

The  play  has  been  variously  dated.  There  are  several 
contemporary  allusions  to  it  and  to  Burbadge's  playing  of 
Richard  (App.  B,  nos.  xiii,  xvi,  xix,  xx,  xxiv),  but  all  are 
later  than  Qi,  with  the  possible  exception  of  one  by 
Weever,  which  is  itself  of  uncertain  date,  and  may  refer 
to  Richard  II.  Both  style  and  psychology  point  to  an 
early  period  in  Shakespeare's  work,  and  the  links  with 
Henry  VI  suggest  that  it  followed  that  play  after  no  long 
interval.  I  do  not  think  it  inconceivable  that  it  was  the 
Buckingham  performed,  not  as  a  new  j>lay,  by  Sussex's 
men  on  I  Jan.  1594  (App.  D).  Certainly  Buckingham 
is  not  the  chief  character,  but  Henslowe  was  not  precise 


304  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

in  his  use  of  titles.  The  historical  facts  are  almost  all  from 
the  chronicles  of  Halle  and  Holinshed,  themselves  based 
mainly  on  Polydore  Vergil's  Anglicae  Historiae  (i  534)  and 
the  Life  of  Richard  generally  ascribed  to  Sir  Thomas 
More.  Holinshed  substantially  follows  Halle,  but  each 
has  some  special  features  represented  in  the  play,  and  pro- 
bably both  were  consulted.  Possibly  a  hint  or  two  came 
from  A  Mirror  for  Magistrates.  It  is  not  very  likely  that 
Shakespeare  knew  Thomas  Legge's  academic  Richardus 
Tertius1  although  both  have  a  wooing  scene  for  Richard. 
Churchill  497  enumerates  many  parallels  of  incident  and 
phrasing,  not  given  by  the  chronicles,  but  often  very  slight, 
to  The  True  Tragedy  of  Richard  the  Third?  and  thinks  that 
Shakespeare  used  it.  Hart  points  out  that  in  this  play,  as 
in  3  Henry  Fla&dRichardlll,  Richard  is  given  to  the  use  of 
proverbial  expressions.  Its  date  is  uncertain.  It  was  regis- 
tered on  1 9  June  1 594,  and  printed  in  the  same  year  as  a 
Queen's  play.  The  text  is  so  bad  as  to  render  any  inference 
hazardous.  It  seems  to  be  a  reported  text,  in  which  much 
of  the  verse  has  been  paraphrased  in  prose.  Even  if  the 
play  itself  was  earlier  the  reporter  may  have  incorporated 
reminiscences  of  Richard  IIL  Law  notes  a  rather  close 
resemblance  between  the  handling  of  Rich.  ///,  i.  4, 
and  that  of  sc.  xix  of  LeirJ  This  was  entered  on  14  May 
1 594,  but  apparently  not  printed  until  1 605,  as  it  was  then 
re-entered.  It  was  played  by  the  Queen's  or  Sussex's  or 
both,  not  as  a  new  play,  in  April  1 594,  and  may  therefore 
be  either  older  or  younger  than  Richard  IIL 

There  was  probably  a  Jacobean  revival  of  Shakespeare's 
play,  as  the  oaths  are  somewhat  pruned  in  Fi,  tut  the 
first  seventeenth-century  performance  on  record  was  at 


court  on  1 6  Nov.  1633  (App.  D).  There  were  rival 
plays  on  the  theme  of  Richard  IIL  Robert  Wilson  wrote 
a  second  part  of  Henry  Richmond  for  the  Admiral's  in  1 599, 
and  a  fragment  of  its  scenario  is  at  Dulwich.  Jonson  at  least 
began  a  Richard  Cwokback  for  the  same  company  in  1602 
(Greg,  Henshwt)  iL  207,  222).  Heywood'sP/easant Dia- 
logues and  Dramas  (i  637),  247,  have  lines  headed  'A  young 

i  E8&  Stage,  iii.  407.  »  md.  nr.  43.  »  IbM.  iv.  25. 


Chap.  IX  RICHARD  THE  THIRD  305 

witty  Lad  playing  the  part  of  Richard  the  third :  at  the  Red 
Bull :  the  Author  because  hee  was  interessed  in  the  Play  to 
incourage  him,  wrot  him  this  Prologue  and  Epilogue'.  This 
would  be  a  play  of  Queen  Anne's  men.  To  one  of  these 
must  belong  the  story  in  R.  Chamberlain's  A  New  Booke 
of  Mistakes  (1637)  of  an  actor  who  had  to  speak  the  lines, 

My  leigej  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  is  tane, 
And  Banister  is  come  for  his  reward. 

and  by  a  slip  inverted  the  names.  Banister  is  no  character 
in  Richard  777,  but  is  in  the  Chronicles,  the  True  Tragedy^ 
and  the  scenario  of  Henry  Richmond.  The  first  line  is  identical 
with  Shakespeare's  iv.  4.  533,  but  is  of  a  type  which  two 
dramatists  might  be  capable  of  hammering  out  indepen- 
dently. The  Dutch  De  Roode  en  Witte  Roos  of  Lankaster 
en  Jork  (1651)  of  Lambert  van  den  Bosch  is  more  likely 
to  have  had  a  source  in  one  of  these  later  plays  than  in  a 
hypothetical  early  version  of  Richard  III,  which  it  does 
not  appear  to  resemble,  structurally  or  in  language. 

V.    THE  COMEDY  OF  ERRORS. 

[F 1. 1 62 3.]  [Catalogue']  The  Comedy  of  Errours.  [Come- 
diesy  pp.  85-100,  sign.  H  i-1 2V.  Head-title]    The  Come- 
die  of  Errors  [Running-title']  as  head-tide. 
[Acts  and  sec.  I  marked.] 
Parallel-Text.    A.  Morgan  (1894,  Bankside). 
Modern  Editions.  H.  Cuningham  (iq^Ardtn)\  A,  Quiller-Couch 
and  J.  D.  Wilson (1922,  C.U.P.)  ;  R.  D*  French  (1926,  Yah}. 
Dissertations.   H.  v.  Friesen,  Bemerkungen  zu  den  Altersbestimmungen 
JfureinigeStuckevonSh.  (1867,7.11, tf)\?.Ww^u&,Zmineuenta'eckte 
Sh.-quellen  (i 879,  J.  xiv.  87);  H.  Isaac,  Sis  CJS.  unddie  Menachmen  des 
Plautus  (1883,  Archlv,  Ixx.  i);  J.  Gr6ne,  Zwei  neuentdecke  Quellen  zu 
''~Sif  CJ£.  (1894,  J.  xxix.  281);  K.  Roeder,  Menechmi  und  Amfhitruo  im 
englischen  Drama  bis  zur  1661  (1904);  F.  Lang,  Sfo  C.E.  in  engllsche 
Sukntnarbeitung  (1909);  W.  H.  D.  Rouse,  The  Mcnaechmh  the  Original 
ofSffs  €.£.  (1912,  &l.  Library);  J.  M.  Robertson,  The  Authorship  *fC.E. 
(1923,  SA.  Canon,  ii.  136);  E.  Gill,  A  Comparison  of  the  Characters  ofCJE. 
with  those  in  the  Menaechmi  (1925,  Texas  Studies,  v.  79);  A.  Gaw,  The 
Evolution  ofCJS.  (1926,  PMJL-4.  xli-  620). 
The  text  is  a  fair  one,  with  a  few  mislineations,  some  of 


3X42.1 


306  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

which  are  probably  due  to  confusion  by  the  sudden  transi- 
tions between  blank  verse,  prose,  and  doggerel  in  certain 
scenes.  I  see  no  obvious  reason  why  a  manuscript  by 
Shakespeare  should  not  have  been  the  basis.  Wilson, 
however,  sees  one  in  the  absence  of  such  abnormal  spel- 
lings as  he  finds  in  some  quartos,  and  takes  to  be  author's 
spellings  which  have  escaped  the  normalization  of  the 
printing-house.  But  whatever  positive  inference  may 
follow  from  the  presence  of  such  spellings  in  one  text,  it 
is  surely  impossible  to  base  a  negative  one  upon  their 
absence  from  another,  in  which  the  normalization  may  have 
been  more  vigilant.  Wilson's  own  theory  of  the  Comedy 
of  Errors  text  involves  (a)  dictation  to  a  scribe  in  the  play 
house  from  (£)  players*  'parts*,  with  the  aid  of  a  'plot'  for 
a  few  brief  stage-directions,  and  (c)  subsequent  expansion 
by  a  second  scribe  imperfectly  familiar  with  the  text  as  it 
stood  in  the  'parts',  who  also  touched  up  the  speech-prefixes. 

A  '  JL  JT  JL 

For  (a)  he  relies  upon  certain  textual  errors  which  might 
be  due  to  mishearing,  but  such  errors  can  also  be  made 
(cf.  p.  1 80)  through  the  subconscious  operations  of  a  com- 
positor's mind.  Such  a  process  of  'assembling*  as  (£)  con- 
templates, although  not  inconceivable,  would  be  attended 
(cf.  p.  1 55)  by  serious  difficulties.  For  (c)  I  find  no  sufficient 
ground.  The  stage-directions  are  mainly  of  a  practical  kind ; 
occasionally  they  contain  a  note  of  the  relationship  of  charac- 
ters, or  for  attire  or  properties,  or  action ;  occasionally  some- 
thing is  left  by  a  'three  or  foure'  (iv«4. 109)  or  *as  fast  as  may 
be*  (iv.  4. 1 50)  to  the  discretion  of  the  theatre.  I  think  that 
they  are  primarily  author's  directions.  But  in  places  (iv. 
4, 43, 149 ;  v,  i .  1 90)  a  superfluity  or  error  points  to  expan- 
sion, either  in  printing  F  or  more  likely  by  the  book- 
keeper, who  is  probably  also  responsible  for  the  first 
speech-prefixes  after  entrances,  which  as  suggested  by 
Greg,  the  author  seems  habitually  to  have  left  blank.  The 
substitution  of  Juliana  for  Luciana  (iii.  2.  i)  both  in  stage- 
direction  and  speech-prefix  is  probably  a  mere  printers 
error.  There  are  variations  in  the  spelling  of  proper 
names,  in  the  text  as  well  as  the  stage-directions  and 
speech-prefixes,  which  do  not  seem  to  me  evidence  of  any- 


Chap.  IX  THE  COMEDY  OF  ERRORS  307 

thing  but  a  want  of  uniformity  in  spelling-habits.   The 
speech-prefixes  show  the  tendency  to  substitute  descrip- 
tions for  personal  names,  which  is  common  in  Shakespeare's 
plays,  and  represents,  I  think  (cf .  p.  2  3  2),  an  idiosyncrasy  of 
his.  They  are  also  much  abbreviated.  Probably  this  was 
also  so  in  the  original  stage-directions  and  the  book-keeper 
has  expanded  them,  not  always  correctly.   Thus  Antipholis 
appears  for  Antipholus  until  an  occurrence  of  the  name 
in  the  text  serves  as  a  guide  to  correction.    An  off-hand 
writer,  a  book-keeper,  and  a  printer  seem  to  me  to  explain 
all  the  facts,  without  recourse  to  any  process  of  dictation. 
The  play  (1,777  lines)  is  Shakespeare's  shortest,  and  was 
probably  meant  to  precede  a  mask,  jig,  or  other  afterpiece. 
A  few  abrupt  short  lines  and  passages  of  textual  corrup- 
tion may  point  to  cuts,  not  necessarily  of  great  length.  But 
again  I  cannot  follow  Wilson  in  the  theory  that  there  has 
been  substantial  abridgement,  perhaps  by  the  excision  of 
dinner  scenes  at  the  Phoenix  and  the  Porpentine,  which 
might  have  expanded  the  sketchy  characters  of  the 
Courtesan,  Balthazar,  and  the  kitchen  vestal,  or  in  the 
further  suggestion  that  this  abridgement  was  for  a  pro- 
vincial tour.  Any  shortness  of  personnel  would  surely  have 
led  to  cutting  out  Balthazar  altogether.    Nor  do  I  think 
with  Wilson  that  the  transitions  between  blank  verse, 
doggerel,  and  prose  imply  any  rewriting  of  verse  as  prose. 
The  staging  of  the  play  is  interesting.  The  stage-direction 
(v.  i.  10),  'Enter  Antipholus^  and  Dromio  againe'  sug- 
gests that  the  action  was  continuous  throughout  and  the 
F  division  into  acts  uncalled  for,  since  these  characters 
left  the  stage  at  the  end  of  Act  iv.  There  are  some  unusual 
stage-directions  indicating  entries  and  exits   'from  the 
Courtizans'  (iv.  i.  14),  'from  the  Bay*  (iv.  i.  85),  'to  the 
Priorie'  (v.  i.  37),  'to .the  Abbesse'  (v.  i.  281).  Probably 
the  stage  was  set  in  the  same  way  throughout.   At  the 
back  of  the  stage  three  houses  or  doors  represented  to  the 
right  and  left  the  Priory  with  some  religious  emblem  over 
it,  and  the  Courtesan's  house  with  the  sign^  of  the  Por- 
pentine, and  in  the  centre  the  house  of  Antipholus  with 
the  sign  of  the  Phoenix.  As  Wilson  points  out^  Adriana 


X2 


3o8  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

and  Luce  must  here  appear  'above'  in  iii.  i.  There  is  no 
other  action  above  and  none  within ;  all  is  either  at  the  doors 
of  the  houses,  or  in  an  open  place,  often  referred  to  as 
the  'mart'.  The  mart  scenes  were  played  at  the  front  of 
the  stage,  and  the  side  entrances  were  supposed  to  lead  to 
the  bay  and  to  the  town  respectively.  But  while  characters 
sometimes  seem  to  move  direct  from  the  mart  to  the  houses, 
there  are  also  passages  which  suggest  that  they  go  off  the 
stage  on  the  way  between  these.  Such  inconsistencies 
would  probably  not  be  much  felt  in  a  bustling  action. 

Ritson  suggested  that  the  doggerel  was  taken  aver  by 
Shakespeare  from  an  earlier  writer,  and  the  same  view  is 
held  by  many  recent  critics.1  Some  of  it  is  in  short  pas- 
sages from  the  mouths  of  the  Dromios,  but  most  of  it  in  the 
first  part  of  iii.  i,  where  several  more  serious  characters 
share  it  with  them;  and  this  is  taken  as  a  scene  retained  by 
Shakespeare  from  a  hypothetical  earlier  form  of  the  play. 
Why  it  should  have  been  so  retained  requires  a  more 
satisfactory  explanation  than  it  has  received.  Wilson  says 
that  Shakespeare  'thought  it  good  enough  to  pass  muster 
as  it  stood';  Gaw  that  he  was  so  'inexperienced'  that  he 
'left  the  scene  as  hopeless*.  I  will  present  the  advocates  of 
the  retention  theory  with  the  fact  that  the  word  'morne' 
(iiL  i.  32),  not  used  elsewhere  by  Shakespeare,  is  a  com- 
mon vituperative  term  in  the  drama  of  Uaall's  time,  and 
add  that  it  seems  to  me  just  as  easy  to  suppose  that  here 
and  in  Taming  of  the  Shrew  and  Love's  Labour's  Lost,  where 
there  is  also  a  substantial  use  of  doggerel,  Shakespeare  was 
consciously  experimenting  with  an  archaistic  form  for 
comic  effect.  There  are  other  stylistic  experiments  in  the 
play,  comic  stichomythia,  rhyme,  and  lyric  quatrains  for 
the  sentimental  matter  of  iii.  2  and  iv.  2,  Nor  can  I  attach 
much  importance  to  the  suggestion  of  an  old  text  derived 
from  the  Paul's  court  play  of  'The  historie  of  Error' 
in  1577,  perhaps  through  Sussex's  court  play  of  *A 
historie  of  fferrar*  in  i$%3*z  We  know  nothing  about 
these  pkys  except  their  names.  Obviously  Paul's  might 
have  adapted  a  Plautine  play  and  called  it  Error.  But  there 

1  rar,b.  147.  a  £/«.  Stags,  iv.  151,  159. 


Chap.  IX  THE  COMEDY  OF  ERRORS  309 

are  many  kinds  of  error.  They  might  also,  for  example, 
have  produced  a  moral  with  Error  as  a  character.  A 
Paul's  play  is  not  likely  to  have  proved  very  suitable  for 
Sussex's  men,  even  if  Paul's,  who  continued  active  up  to 
1589,  wanted  to  part  with  it  in  1583.  And  Sussex's 
'fferrar'  looks  to  me  very  much  like  Terrara*.  I  see  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  Revels  Clerk  made  up  his 
accounts  from  dictation.  The  kitchen  vestal  is  called 
Luce  in  iii.  i.  53  and  Nell  in  iii.  2.  1 1 1,  and  this  has  been 
held  to  confirm  the  alien  origin  of  the  earlier  passage.  She 
is  also  called  Dowsabel  in  iv,  I.  no,  but  that  is  a  joke. 
I  think  that  Shakespeare  altered  his  name,  either  to  get 
his  pun  on  *an  ell'  or  to  avoid  confusion  with  Luciana,  and 
forgot  to  correct  iii.  i.  53.  On  either  supposition . he 
left  an  inconsistency.  There  are  others  in  the  play.  The 
age  of  the  twins  is  differently  given,  unless  there  is  a  mis- 
print, by  the  various  indications  of  i.  i.  125,  133  and  v.  i. 
309,  326, 400.  The  goldsmith  at  iii.  2.178  has  forgotten 
what  he  was  told  about  the  chain  at  iii.  i.  117. 

The  theory  of  continuous  play-copy  over  a  long  span 
of  years  has  proved  so  exciting  as  to  lead  more  than  one 
writer  to  suggest  the  intervention  of  yet  another  hand  in  an 
evolution  from  Error  to  Errors.  The  episodes  dealing  with 
the  history  of  Egeon  and  -Emilia  (i.  i  and  parts  of  v.  i) 
are  written  in  a  formal  narrative  style  which  contrasts  with 
the  more  boisterous  manner  of  the  greater  part  of  the  play. 
Percentages  are  valueless  in  dealing  with  so  small  a  num- 
ber of  lines,  but  there  are  many  grammatical  overflows, 
although  little  pausation  within  the  lines,  several  examples 
of  the  'balanced'  line,  and  few  double  endings.  A  touch 
or  two  here  and  there  (i.  i.  32,  64)  may  come  from 
classical  reminiscence.  There  is  no  reason  why  Shake- 
speare should  not  have  thought  a  difference  of  style  appro- 
priate to  a  difference  between  tragic  and  comic  subject- 
matter.  But  Wilson  tentatively  suggested  the  hand  of 
Greene,  and  Gaw  would  substitute  Kyd.  I  think  the  pas- 
sages too  weighty  for  the  one  and  too  dignified  for  the 
other.  Robertson  leaves  them  to  Shakespeare,  and  in  deed  he 
leaves  little  else  except  the  lyrical  matter  in  iii.  2>  regarding 


3  io  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

the  play  in  the  main  as  a  comedy  by — Marlowe.  This  view 
is  largely  based  on  stylistic  impression,  helped  out  by 
very  slight  vocabulary  'clues'  and  an  unfounded  theory 
(cf.  p.  224)  as  to  Marlowe's  supposed  late  addiction  to 
double  endings.  In  the  absence  of  any  evidence  as  to 
Marlowe's  manner  in  comedy,  for  which  Robertson  sub- 
stitutes another  hypothesis  that  he  wrote  in  A  Shrew,  it  is 
difficult  to  discuss  it  seriously. 

As  to  date,  the  first  clear  record  of  the  play  is  the  per- 
formance at  Gray's  Inn  on  2  8  December  1594.  Fleay-L./ir. 
178  is  of  course  wrong  in  supposing  that  the  hit  at  the 
barrenness  of  Scotland  (iii.  2.  123)  motived  the  protest  of 
James  against  the  scorning  of  himself  and  his  people  in 
London  plays,  since  this  was  not,  as  he  says,  in  1595,  but 
in  I598.1  But  the  corresponding  hit  (iii.  2.  126)  at 
France,  'armed  and  reverted,  making  war  against  her 
heir',  takes  us  a  little  farther  back,  as  Henri  IV  became 
entitled  to  the  crown  on  12  August  1 589,  and  the  struggle 
of  the  League  against  him  was  ended  by  a  truce  of  19  July 
1593.  So  far  as  this  goes,  the  Comedy  of  Errors  might  quite 
well  be  'the  gelyous  comodey'  produced  as  a  new  play  by 
'Strange's'  men  on  5  January  1593 (App.D).  lamnotsure 
that  it  was  not.  Jealousy  is  a  sufficiently  prominent  motive 
(ii.  2;  iii.  I ;  iv.  2;  v.  i)  to  justify  such  a  description  from 
the  inexact  pen  of  Henslowe.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  a 
prominent  motive  in  many  comedies,  and  there  were  no 
further  performances  of  the  comedy  during  the  season, 
unless  it  was  identical  with  that  of  Cosmo.  This  would 
have  been  unusual.  Moreover,  there  are  two  apparent 
echoes  of  the  Comedy  of  Errors  which  seem  to  point  to 
an  earlier  date  than  1593.  Wilson  noted  the  resemblance 
to  iv.  4.  88—9  of  the  phrase  'heart  and  good  will,  but 
neuer  a  ragge  of  money*  in  Nashe,  Four  Letters  Confuted f 
registered  on  12  January  1593  and  published  with  the 
imprint  *  1 592',  which  Greg  thinks  would  not,  in  a  popular 
pamphlet,  mean  1593.  Gabriel  Harvey's  Foure  Letters,  to 
which  Nashe  replied,  was  itself  registered  on  4  December 
1 592.  The  description  of  a  villain  in  4rde&  of  Faversham, 

*  £les»  Stage,  i.  323.  *  ed,  McKerrow,  i.  301. 


Chap.  IX  THE  COMEDY  OF  ERRORS  311 

ii.  i.  51,  registered  on  3  April  1592  and  printed  in  the 
same  year,1  links  the  epithets  'leane  faced*  and  'hollow  eied'. 
much  as  they  are  linked  in  that  of  Pinch  in  v.  i.  237-40. 
Of  course  echoes  may  go  either  way  or  have  a  common 
origin,  but  Arden  has  many  from  contemporary  plays,  and 
Nashe,  earlier  in  his  chaff  of  Gabriel  Harvey  in  Four 
Letters  Confuted  $.  271)  quotes  Spanish  Tragedy  i.  2.  172, 
and  adds  'Memorandum:  I  borrowed  this  sentence  out  of 
a  Play.  The  Theater,  Poets  hall,  hath  many  more  such 
prouerbes  to  persecute  thee  with.'  If,  therefore,  Nashe 
echoed  Shakespeare  we  must  put  the  Comedy  of  Errors 
back  to  at  least  December  1592.  A  private  perform- 
ance then  might  -be  compatible  with  a  public  produc- 
tion on  the  following  January  5.  But  if  Arden  also 
echoed  him,  which  I  think  the  less  certain  of  the  two,  we 
must  put  the  Comedy  back  to  at  least  the  spring  of  1592. 
The  stylistic  development,  with  its  beginnings  of  lyric 
comedy  in  iii.  2,  is  in  favour  of  the  later  date,  after 
Shakespeare's  work  on  Venus  and  Adonis.  I  must  leave  it 
at  that.  There  was  a  revival  at  court  on  28  December 
1604  (App.D). 

The  main  source,  direct  or  indirect,  is  the  Menaechmi  of 
Plautus,  but  iii.  i  is  probably  due  to  his  Amphitruo,  in 
which  a  husband  is  locked  out  from  his  own  house  while 
a  substitute  eats  his  dinner,  and  this  may  also  have  sug- 
gested the  addition  of  twin  servants  to  the  twin  masters. 
The  Comedy  of  Errors  has  elaborated  and  varied  the 
intrigue  and  added  the  enveloping  tragic  action.  Possibly 
the  story  of  Apollonius  of  Tyre,  used  for  Pericles  (c£ 
p.  527)  may  have  given  a  hint  for  this.  Suggested 
parallels  with  Chaucer's  Knighfs  Tale  and  Sidney's 
Arcadia  are  very  slight.  A  translation  of  the  Menaechmi 
by  W(illiam)  W(arner)  was  registered  on  10  June  1594; 
the  only  print  known  is  dated  1595.  The  verbal  resem- 
blances of  this  to  the  Comedy  of  Errors  are  trifling,  and  may 
well  be  accidental,  but  preliminary  verses  by  Warner 
claim  'much  pleasant  error'.  If  Shakespeare  used  this,  it 
was  probably  in  manuscript,  and  in  fact  a  printer's  preface 

1  B&&.  Stagey  iv.  3. 


312  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

states  that  it  was  one  of  'diverse  of  this  Poettes  Comedies 
Englished,  for  the  use  and  delight  of  his  private  friends' 
by  the  translator.  The  Amphitruo  might  have  been 
another.  But  I  see  no  reason  to  doubt  that  Shakespeare 
could  have  read  Plautus  in  the  original.  A  puzzle  is 
afforded  by  the  appearance  in  the  earlier  stage-directions  of 
the  Comedy  of  Errors  of  the  designations  Antipholis  Erotes 
(i.  2.  i)  and  Errotis  (ii.  2.  i)  for  Antipholus  of  Syracuse, 
and  Antipholis  Sereptus  (ii.  i.  i)  for  Antipholus  of 
Ephesus.  These  look  like  misprints  for  Surreptus  and 
Erraticus  or  Errans,  although  I  do  not  accept  the 
suggestion  that  the  Plautine  name  for  the  Courtesan, 
Erotium,  has  contributed.  Both  in  Plautus  and  in  Warner 
the  twins  are  Menaechmus  and  Sosicles,  but  Warner  also 
calls  them  the  Citizen  and  the  Traveller,  and  the  Plautine 
prologue,  which  Warner  does  not  translate,  speaks  of  the 
Citizen  as  surreptus\  while  in  the  Comedy  of  Errors  the 
Abbess  (v.  i.  351)  says  that  'rude  fishermen  of  Corinth* 
took  Antipholus  of  Ephesus  from  her.  Possibly,  there- 
fore, Shakespeare  had  access  to  a  Latin  text,  such  as  the 
Plantin  edition  of  1566,  which  included  the  prologue. 

VI.    TITUS  ANDRONICUS. 

[S.R.  1594.]  vjto  die  ffebruarii.  John  Danter.  Entred  for 
his  Copye  vnder  thandes  of  bothe  the  wardens  a  booke  in- 
tituled a  Noble  Roman  Historye  of  Tytus  Andronicus.  vjd. 
John  Danter.  Entred  also  vnto  him  by  warraunt  from 
Master  Woodcock  the  ballad  thereof.  vjd.  (Arber,  ii.  644). 
[Q1  • . J  594*]  The  Most  Lamentable  Romaine  Tragedie 
of  Titus  Andronicus:  As  it  was  Plaide  by  the  Right 
Honourable  the  Earleof  Darbie,  Earle  of  Pembrooke,  and 
Earle  of  Sussex  their  Seruants.  [Banter's  device  (Mc- 
Kerrow  281)]  London,  Printed  by  lohn  Danter,  and  are 
to  be  sold  by  Edward  White  &  Thomas  Millington,  at 
the  little  North  doore  of  Paules  at  the  signe  of  the  Gunne. 
*594*  [Head-title^  under  ornament  with  initials  I.  D.] 
The  most  Lamentable  Roman  Tragedie  of  Titus  Andro- 
nicus: As  it  was  Plaide  by  the  Right  Honourable  the  Earle 
of  Darbie,  Earle  of  Pembrooke,  and  Earle  of  Sussex 


I 
I 


o 
fc 

8 


Chap.  IX  TITUS  ANDRONICUS  313 

their   Seruants.    [Running-title]   The  most  Lamentable 
Tragedie  of  Titus  Andronicus. 

[Collection  of  H.  C.  Folger.    Photographs  of  the  tp.  and  four  other 
pages  are  BodL  Malone  Adds.)  48,  f.  i.] 

[MS.  1595.]  Harley  Papers  (Marquis  of  Bath's  MSS.  at 
Longleat)  i.  f.  159*.  Calligraphic  copy  of  i,  i.  104-21 
(first  half  of  line)  and  v.  i.  125-44,  linked  by  two  and 
a  half  lines  not  in  Qq  F.  There  are  slight  textual  and 
many  orthographic  variants,  of  which  'haystackes*  (v.  i. 
133)  agrees  with  F,  where  Qi  has  'haystalkes'  and  Q2 
and  Q3  'haystakes*.  At  the  end  is  a  speech-prefix  for 
Alarbus,  who  has  no  speech  in  Qq  F.  Above  is  a  drawing 
of  Tamora  and  two  sons  in  supplication  to  Titus,  and 
Aaron  standing  with  a  sword  drawn.  In  the  margin  is 
'Henricus  Peacham  Anno  m°q°  9  q°',  and  a  spare  page 
is  endorsed  'Henrye  Peachams  Hande  1595*. 
Facsimile.  E.  K.  Chambers  (1925, 4  Library,  v.  3263  cf.  Plate  XI). 

[Q2.  1600.]  The  most  lamentable  Romaine  Tragedie  of 
Titus  Andronicus.  As  it  hath  sundry  times  beene  playde 
by  the  Right  Honourable  the  Earle  of  Pembrooke,  the 
Earle  of  Darbie,  the  Earle  of  Sussex,  and  the  Lorde 
Chamberlaine  theyr  Seruants  [Ornament],  At  London, 
Printed  by  I(ames)  R(oberts)  for  Edward  White  and  are 
to  bee  solde  at  his  shoppe,  at  the  little  North  doore  of 
Paules,  at  the  signe  of  the  Gun.  1600.  [Head-title]  The 
most  lamentable  Romaine  Tragedie  of  Titus  Andronicus: 
As  it  was  plaid  by  the  Right  Honorable  the  Earle  of 
Darbie,  Earle  of  Pembrooke,  and  Earle  of  Sussex  theyr 
Seruants.  [Running-title]  The  most  lamentable  Tragedie 
of  Titus  Andronicus. 

Facsimiles.  E.  W.  Ashbee  (1866);  C.  Praetorius  (1886,  Sh.  Q. 
xxix,  ed.  A.  Symons). 

[S.R.  1602.]  19  Aprilis  . . .  Thomas  Pavier.  Entred  for 
his  copies  by  assignement  from  Thomas  Millington  these 
bookes  folowinge,  Saluo  Jure  cuiuscunque  viz  ...  A 
booke  called  Titus  and  Andronicus  vjd  Entred  by  warrant 
vnder  master  Setons  hand  (Arber,  iii.  204), 
[Q3- 1611.]  [Ornament]  The  most  Lamentable  Tragedie 


3H  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

of  Titus  Andronicus.  As  it  hath  sundry  times  beene 
plaide  by  the  Kings  Maiesties  Seruants  [Allde's  device 
(McKerrow  284)]  London,  Printed  (by  Edward  Allde  for) 
for  Eedward  {sic}  White,  and  are  to  be  solde  at  his  shoppe, 
nere  the  little  North  dore  of  Pauls,  at  the  signe  of  the 
Gun.  1 6 1 1 .  [Head-  and  Running-titles^  nearly  as  in  Q2 .] 

[Fi.  1623.]    [Catalogue"]  Titus  Andronicus.    [Tragedies, 
PP-  3 1-52  5  s^Sn* cc  4"^e  2*-  Head-title.']  The  Lamentable 
Tragedy  of  Titus  Andronicus.  [Running-title']  The  Tragedie 
of  Titus  Andronicus. 
[Acts  i,  sc.  i,  ii-v  marked.] 

[S.R.  1624.]  14  Decembris,  1624  Master  Pavier  John 
Wright  Cutbert:  Wright  Edward.  Wright  John  Gris- 
mond  Henry  Gosson.  Entred  for  their  Copies  at  a  full 
Court  holden  6°  Novembris,  last,  The  Copies  of  the 
Ballades  hereafter  perticulerly  menconed.  Provided  that 
this  entrance  shall  not  preiudice  any  other  man  that  have 
any  Interest  to  any  of  them  by  any  former  Entrance  or 
otherwise  xx8.  (128  titles,  including)  Titus  and  Audcon- 
mus  (Arber,  iv.  131). 

[S.R.  1626.]  4°  August  1626.  Edward  Brewster  Robert 
Birde  Assigned  ouer  vnto  them  by  Mistress  Pavier  and 
Consent  of  a  full  Court  of Assistantes  all  the  estate  right  title 
and  Interest  which  Master  Thomas  Pavier  her  late  husband 
had  in  the  Copies  here  after  mencioned  . ,  viz* .  .  Master 
Pavier's  rights  in  Shakesperes  plaies  or  any  of  them. 
His  parte  in  any  sorts  of  Ballads  .  .  (18  items) .  . .  Tytus 
and  Andronicus  (Arber,  iv.  164). 
Parallel-Text.  A.  Morgan  (1890,  Bankside). 
Modern  Editions.  H.  B.  Baildon  (1904,  Arden)\  A.  M.  Wither- 
spoon  (1926,  Tale], 

German  Version.  Eine  sehr  Udgliche  Tragcedia  von  Tito  Andronico 
undder  kaffertigen  Kayserin  (1620,  Engelische  Comedien  und  Trage- 
£en}\  repr.  W,  Creizenach,  Die  Schattspiele  der  Englischen  Komo- 
dianttn(i%%()}y  i;  tr.  Cohn  161, 

Dutch  Version.  Jan  Vos,  Aran  en  Titus  *  ofWraak  en  Weerwraak 

(1641,  &c). 

\Diuertoti0KS.  H.P^ Memoranda m... T~d. (i 879);  J. Appleton Morgan 


Chap.  IX  TITUS  ANDRONICUS  3  r  5 

in  Shakespeareana,  vi  (1888);  M.  M.  A.Schroer,  VttrT.4.(i$Qi);  E 
Koppel,  T.A.  (1892,  E.S.  xvi.  365);  H.  Varnhagen,  Zur  Forgeschichte  der 
FahlvonShs  T.A.(i  S<)3,E.$.xix.i6ft  G.Svmzm,GermanischeHeldensage 
in  SL's  T.A.  (i  896,  Archiv,  xcvii.  373);  A.  B.  Grosart,  Was  Robert  Greene 
substantially  the  Author  of  T.A.  (i 896,  E.S.  xxii.  389);  C.  Crawford,  The 
Authenticity  <?/T.^.(i9OO,7.xxxvi.  IO9);  H.deW. Fuller,  TheSourcesof 
T.A.  (1901,  P.M.L.A.  xvi.  i);  G.  P.  Baker,  Tittus  and  Fespacia  and  Titus 
andOndronicus  (1901,  PM.L.A.  xvi.  66);  J.  M.  Robertson,  DidSh.  Write 
T.A.?  (1905,  revised  1924,  as  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  the  Shakespeare 
Canon}-,  W.  Keller,  Die  neuaufgefundene  Q  des  T.A.  von  1594  (1905*  J- 
xli.  2 1 1);  C.  J.  R.  Schreckhas,  Utter  Enstehungszeit  und Ferfasser  des  TJi. 
(1906);  W.  W.  Greg,  TJ*.  (1908,  Henslowe,  ii.  159),  T.A.  (1919, 
M.L.R.  xiv.  322);  W.  Dibelius,  Zur  Stoffgeschichte  des  T.A.  (1912,  y. 
adviii.  i);  H.  D.  Gray,  The  Authorship  ofTJi.  (1916,  Ltland  Stanford 
Jun.  Univ.  Flugel  Memorial  Vol.  114),  T.A.  Once  More  (1919,  M.L.N. 
rxxiv.  214),  The  T.4.  Problem  (1920,  S.P.  xvii.  126),  Sh.'s  Share  in  T.A. 
(1926,  P.Q.  v.  166);  C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke,  T7^.  and  SL  (1919,  M.Z.AT. 
xxxiv.  32);  T.  M.Parrott,  Sh.9s  Revision  ofTji.  (1919,  M.L.R.  xiv.  16); 

F.  Granger,  8 A.  and  the  Legend  of  Andronicus  (1920,  Apr.  r,  T.L.S., 
followed  by  discussion);  R.  C.  Rhodes,  Titus  and  Vespasian  ( 1 924,  Apr.  1 7, 
T.L.S.,  followed  by  discussion);.  E.  K.  Chambers,  The  First  Illustration  to 
Sh.  (1925,  4  Library,  v.  326);  E.  G.  Clark,  Titus  and  Pespasian  (1926, 
M.L.N.  xli.  523);  A.  K.  Gray,  Si.  and T^i.  (1928,  S.P.  xxv.  295);  J.  S. 

G.  Bolton,  The  Authentic  Text  of  TJ*.  (1929,  PM.Lji.  xliv.  765). 

Qi  was  known  in  1691  to  Langbaine,  who  copied  'Essex* 
in  error  for  'Sussex'  from  its  title-page.  The  only  copy 
now  known  was  found  in  Sweden  in  1905.  It  has  not 
been  reprinted,  but  Keller  gives  a  collation  by  E.  Ljung- 
gren,  which  shows  that  its  text  was  substantially  that  of 
£>2,  except  that  Q2  omitted  3^  lines  after  i.  i.  35, 
evidently  as  inconsistent  with  the  action  later  in  the  scene, 
and  made  a  few  less  intelligible  alterations  in  v.  3.  Sub- 
ject to  this,  Qa  was  printed  from  Qi,  £3  from  Q2,  and 
Fi  from  Q3,  with  the  addition  of  iii.  2,  which  is  in  none 
of  the  Qq.  The  collation  does  not  show  whether  in  Qi, 
as  in  Q2,  the  speech-prefixes  of  i.  1. 1-56  and  v.  1. 121-4 
are,  exceptionally,  centred.  If  they  are,  it  may  point  to 
excisions  during  printing-off.  The  fragment  in  the 
LongleatMS.  is  on  the  whole  more  likely  to  be  a  perversion 
from  Qi  than  to  rest  on  an  independent  text.  The  Q 
stage-directions  are  rather  full  and  suggest  an  author's 
hand.  They  are  slightly  varied  in  F,  and  at  the  beginning 
of  Act  ii  F  substitutes  'Flourish.  Enter  Aaron  alone'  for 


3i6  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  POLIO          Chap.  IX 

the  'sound  trumpets,  manet  Moore*  of  the  Qq,  which  appa- 
rently contemplated  no  act-interval.  Possibly  the  use  of 
An.  for  Titus  throughout  the  speech-prefixes  of  iii.  2  and 
here  alone  and  the  spelling  'Tamira'  for  'Tamora*  in  the 
text  point  to  a  distinct  scribal  origin  for  this  added  scene. 
The  following  data,  in  addition  to  those  given  in  the 
bibliographical  history,  bear  on  the  date  and  authorship  of 
the  play,  (a)  'Strange's'  men  produced  Titus  and  Ves- 
pasian as  'ne'  for  Henslowe  on  n  April  1592  and  played 
it  to  25  January  1593;  (£)  Sussex's  men  produced  Titus 
Andronicus  as  *ne'  for  Henslowe  on  24  January  1594  and 
played  it  to  6  February  1594;  (*)  the  Admiral's  and/or 
Chamberlain's  men  played  Andronicus  for  Henslowe  on 
7  and  14  June  1 594  (App.  D) ;  (d)  Jonson  in  1 6 14  implied 
that  Andronicus,  like  the  Spanish  Tragedy,  had  been  on  the 
stage  'these  fiue  and  twentie,  or  thirtie  yeeres'  (App.  B, 
no.  xxii);  (e)  In  A  Knack  to  Know  a  Knave,  produced  by 
'StrangeY  as  'ne'  on  10  June  1592  and  registered  on 
7  January  1594,  is  the  allusion  (F2*): 

As  Titus  was  vnto  the  Roman  Senators, 
When  he  had  made  a  conquest  on  the  Goths; 

(/)  Meres  included  Titus  Andronicus  among  Shakespeare's 
plays  in  1598  (App.  B,  no.  xiii);  (g)  Ravenscroft  in  1687 
reports  a  stage  tradition  that  Titus  Andronicus  was  by  a 
'private  author',  and  Shakespeare  'only  gave  some  master- 
touches  to  one  or  two  of  the  principal  parts  or  characters' 
(App.  C,  no.  xiv).  This  is  the  only  bit  of  external  evidence 
against  the  authenticity  of  any  play  in  Fi.  Partly  as  a 
result  of  it,  and  partly  on  stylistic  grounds,  Shakespeare's 
original  authorship  has  been  very  generally  doubted  from 
the  days  of  Malone  onwards.  Dissentients  have  tended  to 
regard  the  play  as  very  early  work.  Most  of  the  doubters 
have  assumed  some  measure  of  revision  by  him,  but  with 
no  great  agreement  as  to  its  nature  and  extent.  There  have 
been  many  attempts  to  find  an  alternative  author,  or 
alternative  authors*  amongst  dramatists  known  to  us. 
The  latest  is  that  of  Robertson,  who  brings  an  elaborate 
and  discursive  investigation  to  the  conclusion  that  there 


Chap.  IX  TITUS  ANDRONICUS  317 

have  been  two,  or,  if  I  understand  him  aright,  possibly 
three  collaborations,  and  that  while  the  final  form  is  due 
mainly  to  Peele  and  partly  to  Marlowe,  both  of  these,  with 
Kyd  and  Greene,  may  have  worked  at  earlier  stages.  Of 
course,  if  anything  of  this  kind  has  happened,  there  is  no 
solvent  for  the  amalgam;  and  all  that  Robertson  can  do  is 
to  go  through  the  scenes,  pointing  here  to  a  passage  in 
which  he  discerns  the  rhythm  of  one  writer,  there  to  a 
structural  device,  or  a  bit  of  characterization,  or  a  'clue*  of 
vocabulary  or  phrase,  which  hints  at  another,  and  often 
finding  that  the  clues  conflict  and  that  no  conclusion  is 
possible.  The  methods  employed  inspire  me  (cf.  p.  223) 
with  very  little  confidence,  in  view  of  the  amount  of 
'common  form'  in  plays  of  the  period  and  the  number  of 
little-known  writers  who  may  have  been  at  work.  In 
particular  'parallels',  whether  'echoes*  or  not,  are  insecure 
evidence.  There  are  many  in  Titus  Andronicus  to  both 
plays  and  poems  of  Shakespeare,  Those  to  Marlowe,  Kyd, 
Greene,  and  others  seem  to  me  slight.  But  there  are  many 
also  to  Peele,  and  some,  chiefly  to  his  Edward  I  and  his 
poem  The  Honour  of  the  Garter,  both  printed  in  1593,  go 
rather  beyond  a  repeated  use  of  out-of-the-way  words 
or  of  short  collocations  of  words.  As  a  whole  the  play  does 
not  very  strongly  remind  me  of  any  of  Peek's  known 
plays,  although  I  think  that  he  wrote  with  different 
degrees  of  care  at  different  times.  It  has  not  the  long 
pedestrian  passages  so  common  in  Edward  /and  Alcazar ', 
or  the  passages  of  rhyme  with  which  Peele  generally 
varies  his  blank  verse.  The  proportion  of  double  endings 
is  about  the  same  as  in  i  Henry  71,  appreciably  less  than  that 
in  2, 3  Henry  VI.  Whether  the  play  can  be  very  early  work 
by  Shakespeare,  at  some  date  before  we  have  any  standard 
for  comparison,  I  cannot  say.  The  subject-matter  is  imita- 
tive, but  the  actual  writing  is  fairly  competent,  and  does 
not  obviously  suggest  a  beginner.  It  cannot,  as  a  whole, 
be  Shakespeare's  at  a  date  later  than  Richard  III  and  the 
Comedy  oj  Errors. 

If,  then,  one  could  be  sure  that  the  play  was  really 
new  on  24  January  1594, 1  should  be  inclined  to  accept 


318  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

Ravenscroft's  tradition  much  as  it  stands,  and  to  suppose 
that  the  author,  whether  'private'  in  the  Restoration  sense 
or  not  was  some  one  unknown  to  us.  He  took  his  notions 
of  plotting  from  Kyd,  and  outwent  him  in  his  use  of 
realism,  of  horrors,  of  mystifications,  of  maniacal  episodes; 
his  notions  of  character-drawing  from  Marlowe  and  out- 
went him  by  representing  Aaron  as  obsessed  by  a  lust, 
not  for  power  through  conquest,  or  gold,  or  knowledge, 
but  for  abstract  villainy.   He  had  learnt  to  write  from 
Peele  and  others,  and  made  very  free  use,  consciously  or 
unconsciously,  of  the  common  stock  of  diction,  and  per- 
haps consciously  of  Edward  I  and  the  Garter.   On  this 
theory  the  difficulty  would  really  be  to  lay  a  finger  on  any 
passages  which  Shakespeare  could  reasonably  be  supposed 
to  have  contributed.   Here,  as  elsewhere,  parallels  afford 
little  guidance.    The  mere  out-of-door  feeling  of  such 
passages  as  ii.  2.  i~6;  ii.  3.  10-29  is  not  special  to  him. 
The  touches  of  closer  natural  observation  in  ii.  4.  54 ;  iii.  r . 
1 37 ;  v.  i.  14  are  too  slight  to  lay  stress  upon.  The  highly 
coloured  descriptions  of  ii.  i.  1-25;  ii.  3.  226—36;  ii.  4. 
1 1-57;  iii.  i.  220-34 — like  the  rhetoric  of  iii.  i.  267-79; 
iv.  2.  87-105 — seem  of  a  piece  with  the  play  as  a  whole. 
The  clown  of  iv-  3.  77-121  compares  poorly  with  Jack 
Cade.  Driven  to  a  choice,  one  would  fall  back  on  a  few 
comparatively  dignified  and  far  from  showy  speeches,  such 
asL  1. 104-20, 148-56,  187-200; iii.  1. 1-47;  iv.  4.  81- 
93  * v-  3-  67-95,  I59~7 J  *  ^  ^ee^ no  confidence  about  them. 
Moreover,  there  is  some  reason  to  suppose  that  Titus 
Andronicus  was  not  altogether  new  in  1 594.  I  do  not  attach 
much  importance  in  this  connexion  to  the  German  and 
Dutch  versions  of  1620  and  1641.   They  are  late  and 
there  were  apparently  other  continental  versions ;  a  trace  of 
one,  probably  related  to  the  source  of  Vos,  is  in  a  German 
programme  of  1699.*  Fuller  has  compared  them  minutely 
with  each  other  and  with  Titus  Andronicus,  finds  that  they 
have  certain  common  incidents  not  in  Titus  Andronicusy 
and  on  the  other  hand,  that,  while  all  the  incidents  of 
Titus  Andronicus  are  in  one  or  other  of  them,  some  are 


Chap.  IX  TITUS  ANDRONICUS  319 

only  preserved  in  the  German  and  the  other  in  the  Dutch. 
He  infers  that  they  derive  from  two  distinct  English  plays, 
identifies  these  with  the  Titus  and  Vespasian  and  Titus 
Andronicus  of  Henslowe,  and  regards  the  extant  Titus 
Andronicus  as  a  conflation  of  the  two.  I  do  not  accept  the 
inference.     The   facts   are   quite  consistent  with    the 
natural  hypothesis  of  divergence  from  a  common  source 
in  an  adaptation  of  Titus  Andronicus  for  continental  travel, 
It  is  true  that  in  the  German  version  Lucius  is  renamed 
Vespasian,  which  might  point  to  Titus  and  Vespasian.  But 
nearly  all  the  characters  are  renamed  and  the  Goths 
turned  into  Moors,  and  in  this  process  Vespasian  might 
naturally  suggest  itself.   On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  so 
clear,  on  the  English  evidence  alone,  that  some  form  of 
Titus  Andronicus  did  not  exist  before  1 594,  and  if  so,  that 
it  was  not  Titus  and  Vespasian.  In  itself  this  title  of  course 
suggests  a  play  on  the  siege  of  Jerusalem,  but  Strange's 
men  had  already  a  Jerusalem  in  1592.    That  Qi  repre- 
sents the  play  of  1594  is  certain  from  the  mention  of 
Sussex's  men  on  its  title-page.  The  same  title-page  sug- 
gests earlier  performances,  not  of  necessity  from  precisely 
the  same  text,  by  Derby's  and  Pembroke's,  and  presum- 
ably in  this  order.    We  can  hardly  take  Q2,  which  puts 
Pembroke's  first  on  its  title-page,  but  not  in  its  head-title,  as 
a  better  authority  on  the  point  than  Q I .  'Derby's'  in  1 594 
probably  means  Alleyn's  company,  which  was  'Strange's' 
in  1592,  when  it  gave  Titus  and  Vespasian.    Further,  the 
allusion  in  Knack  to  Know  a  Knavey  also  a  'StrangeV  play, 
points  to  a  knowledge  of  Titus  and  the  Goths,  not  Moors, 
in    1592,   and  no  such  combination  is  known  outside 
Titus  Andronicus.  It  may  be  then,  after  all,  that  'StrangeY 
did  produce  a  form  of  Titus  Andronicus  as  Titus  and 
Vespasian  in  1592,  and  that  it  was  transferred  by  them  to 
Pembroke's,  and  by  Pembroke's  to  Sussex's,  who  revised 
it  as  the  extant  Titus  Andronicus.  The  appearance  of  a 
Titus  and  Vespasian  in  a  Revels  list  of  plays^about  1619 
(App,  D)  gives  some  confirmation  to  the  view  that  the 
tides  are  equivalent.  If  we  pressed  Jonson's  rather  vague 
dating,  we  should  have  to  put  the  origin  of  Titus  Axdro- 


320  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

nicus  as  far  back  as  1589,  but  I  do  not  know  that  we  need 
press  it.  It  must  be  added  that  the  theory  of  a  play  written, 
or  conceivably  revised,  in  1592,  and  then  revised  in  1594, 
is  not  without  its  own  difficulties.  It  is  a  short  interval  for 
a  play  to  become  out  of  date  in.  Henslowe's  *ne',  what- 
ever its  precise  significance,  is  certainly  a  mark  attached  to 
a  play  "the  fyrst  tyme  yt  wasse  playde'.1  Generally  it 
seems  to  have  been  a  new  play  in  the  full  sense.  It  is  pro- 
bable that  it  was  sometimes  a  revised  play,  and  possible 
that  it  was  sometimes  an  old  play,  given  by  a  particular 
company  for  the  first  time.2  But  there  is  no  -clear  case  of 
this  last  type,  and  there  are  several  clear  cases  in  which 
such  a  performance  was  not  marked  *ne'.  We  come  back 
to  authorship.  If  Titus  Andronicus  was  not  new  in  1 594,  we 
cannot  of  course  say  how  much  revision  then  took  place, 
or  whether  Peele  or  another,  as  well  as  Shakespeare, 
helped  in  it.  All  that  can  be  assigned  to  Shakespeare  at 
that  date  seems  very  little  to  justify  a  'ne'.  And,  again, 
if  the  play  was  originally  written  in  15*92,  and  still  more 
if  in  1589,  the  stylistic  case  against  Shakespeare  as  an 
original  writer  is  weakened,  and  as  the  Garter  poem  did 
not  exist,  that  for  Peele  as  an  original  writer  is,  so  far  as 
the  parallels  to  it  have  any  weight,  strengthened.  I  am 
sorry  to  be  so  inconclusive,  but  the  complicated  data  are 
themselves  so.  It  remains  to  notice  a  theory  put  forward 
by  Greg,  It  is  this.  The  play  was  originally  Pembroke's. 
They  made  a  variant  version  for  travelling.  This  did  not 
include  iii.  2.  When  they  were  in  straits  during  1 593,  the 
variant  version  came  into  the  hands  of  Sussex's,  who  played 
it  for  Henslowe,  and  then  allowed  it  to  be  printed.  The  full 
version  they  sold  to  Alleyn.  It  was  played  by  'Derby's/ 
and  passed  to  the  Chamberlain's,  who  played  it  for  Hen- 
slowe. This  version  was  revised  by  Shakespeare,  which 
accounts  for  the  mention  by  Meres.  It  was  afterwards 
burnt  in  the  Globe  fire.  The  King's  men  replaced  it  by 
a^copy  of  Q3,  derived  from  the  variant  version,  but  added 
iii*  2,  which  they  were  accustomed  to  play,  from  memory. 
Shakespeare's  revision  is  therefore  lost,  except  in  so  far 

1  Henskwe,  i.  4$,  50.  «  Ibid.  ii.  148 ;  E8z.  Stage,  ii.  145. 


Chap.  IX  TITUS  ANDRONICUS  321 

as  anything  of  his  may  be  in  iii.  2.  This  is  ingenious,  and 
reconciles  Meres  with  the  difficulty  of  finding  Shake- 
speare's hand  in  the  extant  text.  But  it  assumes  a  con- 
siderable concatenation  of  unusual  incidents,  and  involves 
the  acceptance  of  the  Q2  title-page  as  against  that  of  Qi 
for  the  order  of  the  performing  companies. 

There  were  probably  Jacobean  revivals.  The  'Kings'  of 
the  Q3  title-page  might  merely  bring  up  to  date  the 
'Chamberlains'  of  Q2.  But  Jonson's  reference  of  1614 
and  the  Titus  and  Vespasian  record  of  c.  1619  both  suggest 
that  the  play  held  the  stage,  and  F,  although  retaining 
'God',  substitutes  (iv.  2.  71)  'Out1  for  'Zounds',  a  word 
which  seems  to  have  been  especially  within  the  danger  of 
the  Act  of  Abuses.  If  iii.  2  was  not  added  at  this  or  an 
earlier  revival,  it  must  have  been  in  some  way  recovered 
from  the  original  text,  in  which  a  mark  of  deletion  may 
have  excluded  it  from  Qi.  This  seems  less  likely.  The 
scene  does  not  advance  the  action.  The  earlier  part,  no 
doubt,  is  not  unlike  the  rest  of  the  play.  I  have  sometimes 
fancied  that  the  fly  episode  might  be  Webster's.  I  see  no 
clear  signs  of  f 


The  ballad  registered  by  Danter  in  1594  may,  in  view 
of  the  rather  complicated  ownership  disclosed  by  the  S.R. 
entries  of  1624  and  1626,  be  that  printed  by  A.  Mathews 
for  T.  Langley  in  Richard  Johnson,  The  Golden  Garland  oj 
Princely  Pleasures  (1620),  and  also  in  a  broadsheet  by 
Edward  Wright.  If  so,  it  rested  on  the  play  as  we  have  it. 
It  was  also  appended  to  a  chapbook  version  of  the  story, 
undated  but  printed  by  C.  Dicey  at  Northampton  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  described  by  HJP,,1  and  pre- 
sumably the  same  as  one  noted  by  Farmer.2  It  claims  to  be 
'newly  Translated  from  the  Italian  copy  printed  at  Rome*, 
but  H.P.  says  nothing  to  suggest  that  it  has  any  other 
source  than  Titus  Andronicus*  According  to  Steevens 
Painter's  Palace  of  Pleasure  (1566-7)  speaks  of  the  story 
of  Titus  as  well  known,  but  this  must  be  due  to  a  con- 
fusion.3  There  are  analogous  themes  in  romance  literature 

1  Rarities,  77;  Memoranda  m  All's        *  Var.icd.  381. 
Well,  £fc .,  73.  3  /&& and.  258$  Anders,  266. 

3142.1  7 


322  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

of  rape  and  murder  by  a  revengeful  Moor  and  of  love 
relations  between  a  Moor  and  a  European  lady,  but 
they  do  not  come  very  close  to  the  play.  The  studies 
of  Morgan,  Dibelius,  and  Granger  make  it  likely  that  an 
ultimate  source  existed  in  some  perversion  of  Byzantine 
chronicles  dealing  with  the  twelfth-century  emperor 
Andronicus  Comnenus  and  the  more  or  less  contemporary 
Thamar,  Queen  of  Georgia. 

VII.  THE  TAMING  OF  THE  SHREW 

[S.R.  1594.]  Secundo  die  Maij.  Peter  Shorte.  Entred 
vnto  him  for  his  copie  vnder  master  warden  Cawoodes 
hande,  a  booke  intituled  A  plesant  Conceyted  historic 
called  the  Tayminge  of  a  Shrowe  yjd  (Arber,  ii.  648). 

[1594.]    A  Pleasant   Conceited   Historic,   called  The 

taming  of  a  Shrew.   As  it  was  sundry  times  acted  by  the 

Right  honorable  the  Earle  of  Pembrook  his  seruants. 

[Short's  device  (McKerrow  278)]  Printed  at  London  by 

Peter  Short  and  are  to  be  sold  by  Cutbert  Burbie,  at  his 

shop  at  the  Royall  Exchange.    1 594. 

Facsimile.  C.  Praetorius  (1886,  Sh.  Q.  xv,  ed.  F.  J.  Furnivall). 

Modem  Edition.  F.  S.  Boas  (1908). 

[i  596.]  P.S.,  sold  by  Cuthbert  Burbie. 

[S.R.  1607.]  22.  January.  Master  Linge.  Entred  for  his 

copies  by  direccon  of  A  Court  and  with  consent  of  Master 

Burby  vnder  his  handwrytinge  These,  iij  copies,  viz,  .  . . 

The  taminge  of  A  Shrewe  (Arber,  iii.  337). 

[1607.]  V<alentine>  S<immes)  for  Nicholas  Ling. 

[S.R.  1607.]    19-  Novembris.  John  Smythick.   Entred 

for  his  copies  vnder  thandes  of  the  wardens,  these  bookes 

followmge  Whiche  dyd  belonge  to  Nicholas  Lynge  .viz. 

. . . ,  9  The  taminge  of  A  Shrewe  vjd  (Arber,  iii.  365). 

[Fi.   1623.]    \Catak%ue\    The  Taming  of  the  Shrew. 
\Cemedie$y  pp.  208-29;  sign.  Sav-Vi.    Head-title  and 
Running-titfe]  as  in  Cat. 
[Acts  L  sc  i,  iii,  hr.  sc,  i,  and  v  marked;  altered  in  modern  eds.] 


Chap.  IX          THE  TAMING  OF  THE  SHREW  323 

[Q-  i63iO  A  Wittie  and  Pleasant  Comedie  Called  The 
Taming  of  the  Shrew.  As  it  was  acted  by  his  Maiesties 
Seruants  at  the  Blacke  Friers  and  the  Globe.  Written  by 
Will.  Shakespeare  [Smethwick's  device  (McKerrow  376)] 
Printed  by  W.  S.  for  lohn  Smethwicke,  and  are  to  be 
sold  at  his  Shop  in  Saint  Dunstones  Churchyard  vnder 
theDiall.  1631. 

Parallel-text  (F.  and  A  Shrew).   A.  R.  Frey  (i  888,  Banbide). 
Modern  Editions.  R.  W.  Bond  (1904, 1929,  j/n&»);  H.  T.  E.  Perry 
(1921,  Tale)-,  AT.  Quiller-Couch  and  J.  D.  Wilson  (1928,  C.Uf.). 

.[Dissertations.  S.  Hickson,  T.S.  (1850, 1 N.Q.  i.  345);  R.  K8h!er,  Zu  Shs 
T.S.  (1868,  J.  iii.  397);  F.  G.  Flea/,  On  the  Authorship  of  T.S*  (1874, 
N.S.S.  Trans.  85;  Sh.  Manual,  175);  A,  v.  Weilen,  SAs  Porspielzu  T.S. 
(1884);  R. Urbach, Das Ferhaltniss  des Shs T.S.zuseinen Quellen (1887); 
J.  Bolte,  Eine  Parallel  zu  Shs  T.S.  (i  892,  J.  xrvii.  1 30);  A.  H.  Tolman, 
Si. and  T.$.  and  SA.'s  Love's  Labour's  Won  (1904,  Piews  About  Hamlet, 
203);  E.  H.  Schomburg,  T.S.  (1904);  E.  P.  Kulil,  SA.'s  Purpose  in  Drop- 
ping  Sly  (1921,  M.LJt.  rsxvi.  321),  The  Authorship  of  T.S.  (1925, 
PM.LA.  xl.  551);  J.  M.  Robertson,  Marlowe  and  Comedy  (1923,  SA. 
Canon,  ii.  134);  P.  Alexander,  The  Taming  of  A  Shrew  (1926,  Sept.  16, 
T.£.&)>  F-  H.  Ashton,  The  Revision  of  the  W  Text  ofT.S.  (1927,  P.g.  vi. 
1 5 1);  B.  A.  P.  van  Dam,  A .S.  and  T.S.  (1928,  English  Studies,  x.  97, 16 1). 

The  bibliographical  data  up  to  1 607  relate  to  The  Taming 
of  A  Shrew  J  but  it  is  clear  that  A  Shrew  and  The  Shrew 
were  regarded  commercially  as  the  same,  and  that  the 
copyright  acquired  by  Smethwick  in  1607  covered  both 
Fi  and  the  Q  of  1631,  which  was  printed  from  it  Fi 
has  the  full  author's  stage-directions  usual  in  Shake- 
speare's earlier  work.  I  see  no  reason  to  think  with  Wilson 
that  they  were  added  by  a  second  hand  to  a  dictated  tran- 
script. Doubtless,  however,  the  manuscript  had  been  used 
as  stage-copy.  There  is  an  obvious  addition  at  Ind.  i.  i, 
'Enter  Begger  and  Hostes,  Christophero  Sly',  which  may 
be  due  to  the  book-keeper.  At  Ind.  i.  88,  the  name  of  the 
actor  Sincklo  has  been  substituted  for  flayer.  He  is 
known  as  a  hired  man  of  the  Chamberlain's  company. 
Other  possible  actor-names  in  stage-directions  or  speech- 
prefixes  are  Nicke (iii.  i.  82),  Par (iv.  2. 7i),^F<?/(iv.  3. 63), 
reter  (iv.  4.  69).  They  are  not  all  certain  and,  unless 


324  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

Nicke  is  Nicholas  Tooley,  we  cannot  identify  them.  It  is 
unsafe  to  assume  that  this  Nicke  and  this  Peter  played  the 
similarly  named  servants  in  iv.  i.  They  are  two  out  of 
five  who  appear  and  speak.  There  are  six  others  who  are 
named,  but  do  not  appear.  One  of  these  is  Gabriel,  whom 
it  is  still  less  safe  to  take  as  the  actor  Gabriel  Spencer. 
These  are  all  textual  names,  and  the  book-keeper  cannot 
(cf.  p.  237)  be  responsible  for  them.  Gabriel  can  never 
have  been  cast.  The  act-divisions  of  F  are  not  good,  and 
the  beginning  of  Act  ii  is  not  marked. 

The  relation  of  A  Shrew  to  The  Shrew  is  a  matter  of 
dispute.  I  adhere  to  the  older  view  that  it  was  used  as  a 
source-play,  and  think  that  in  basing  The  Shrew  upon  it 
Shakespeare  had,  exceptionally  for  him,  the  assistance  of  a 
collaborator.  I  assign  to  Shakespeare Ind.  i,  ii;  ii.  I.  1-38, 
ii5-326;iii.  2. 1-129, 15 1-2  54;  iv.  i,3,5;v.  2.  1-181. 
Possibly  he  also  contributed  to  the  Petruchio  episode  in 
i.  2.  i— 1 1 6.  Some  critics  give  him  less  than  I  have  done. 
On  my  view  his  share  amounts  to  about  three-fifths  of 
the  play,  and  includes  all  the  Sly  and  Petruchio-Katharina 
scenes.  The  other  writer  is  responsible  for  the  sub-plot  of 
Bianca's  wooers.  I  do  not  know  who  he  was.  Lodge, 
Greene,  and  Chapman  have  been  suggested  on  very  slight 
grounds.  His  work,  although  not  incompetent,  is  much 
less  vigorous  than  Shakespeare's.  He  has  many  awkward 
lines,  which  disregard  stress  or  contain  unmanageable 
trisyllabic  feet.  He  uses  double  endings  in  much  the  same 
proportion  (i  7  %)  as  Shakespeare  ( 1 9  %).  The  numerous 
scraps  of  Latin  and  Italian  and  the  doggerel  belong  to  his 
part.  *He  makes  less  use  than  Shakespeare  of  phrases  from 
A  Shrew.  Kuhl  has  argued  for  Shakespeare's  sole  author- 
ship, largely  on  the  ground  that  the  characterization, 
especially  of  Petruchio,  is  consistent  throughout.  He  finds 
the  stylistic  differences  inconclusive.  Some  of  them  are, 
individually,  but  collectively  they  are  less  so,  and  bear  out 
a  general  stylistic  impression  from  which  I  cannot  escape. 
The  collaborators  may  well  have  agreed  upon  a  common 
conception  of  Petruchio. 

A  Shrew  furnished  the  main  structure  of  both  plots, 


Chap.  IX         THE  TAMING  OF  THE  SHREW  325 

with  their  characters  and  entanglement,  and  of  the  in- 
duction.    Shakespeare  in  particular  follows  its  details 
pretty  closely,  and  although  his  dialogue,  as  well  as  that 
of  his  collaborator,  is  new,  the  recurrence  of  stray  words 
and  phrases  and  of  half  a  dozen  practically  identical 
blank-verse  lines   (iv.   3.    171-3;  v.  2.    114,    130-1) 
shows  that  the  old  text  was  continuously  before  him, 
There  is  a  still  closer  resemblance  in  iv.  3,  where  many 
points  in  Grumio's  jesting  with  the  tailor  are  taken  over 
from  A  Shrew.   This  is  not  sufficient  to  justify  the  sug- 
gestion that  Shakespeare  himself  contributed  to  A  Shrew, 
and  Sykes  has  made  a  fair  case  for  assigning  the  comic 
prose  of  that  to  Samuel  Rowley.  The  rest  of  the  play  is 
mainly  written  in  pedestrian  verse,  often  neglectful  of 
stress,  but  this  is  varied  by  some  highly  wrought  sections 
or  speeches,  full  of  classical  allusions,  and  much  in  the 
manner  of  Marlowe.   Robertson  and  others  have  taken 
them  to  be  Marlowe's,  but  the  parallels  to  Tamburlaine 
zndDr.Faustus  collected  by  Boas  leave  this  hardly  possible. 
Some  of  these  might  be  mere  echoes,  but  in  others  from 
two  to  four  lines  are  reproduced,  exactly  or  approximately, 
from  Marlowe  in  a  way  which  must  exclude  his  author- 
ship. Nor  does  any  known  dramatist  elsewhere  use  him 
in  this  fashion.   It  looks  as  if  some  one,  conscious  of  his 
own  poetic  insufficiency,  had  attempted  to  heighten  his 
style  by  deliberate  imitation  and  even  plagiarism.  He  may 
also  have  drawn  from  other  plays,  learnt  or  heard  on  the 
stage,  but  not  preserved.  If  this  is  so,  the  date  of  A  Shrew 
must  remain  uncertain.  Lines  in  it  seem  to  be  satirized 
in  Greene's  Menaphon  (1589)  and  Nashe's  epistle  thereto, 
but  these  may  be  among  the  borrowings.   If  the  play  is 
as  old  as  1589,  it  cannot  have  been  originally  written  for 
Pembroke's  men.  Saunder,  who  is  a  player  in^the  induc- 
tion, probably  only  bears  a  character  name,  as  it  is  textual 
in  the  main  plot,  where   Saunder  is  the  prototype  of 
Grumio.  In  any  case  he  can  hardly  be  the  Saunder  of  the 
Seven  Deadly  Sins  plot  (c.  1590),  who  was  then  still  a  boy 
taking  women's  parts. 

A  somewhat  different  view  from  mine  is  put  forward  by 


326  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

Herford,  who  thinks  that  the  conversion  of  A  Shrew  into 
The  Shrew  was  done  by  the  'other  hand',  and  that  Shake- 
speare revised  him.  Similarly  Miss  Ashton  would  find 
traces  of  revision  in  the  sub-plot.  Wilson,  who  does  not 
(cf.  infra)  regard  A  Shrew  as  a  source,  suggests  revision 
by  Shakespeare  of  a  hypothetical  play,  from  which  he 
thinks  that  some  clown-dialogue  by  Nashe  may  have 
been  preserved.  I  do  not  find  much  evidence  of -disloca- 
tion in  F  i  to  bear  out  such  views.  It  is  a  fairly  clean  text. 
As  Wilson  points  out,  there  is  a  tendency,  more  marked  in 
some  scenes  than  others,  to  drop  or  add  small  words, 
which  may  be  that  of  an  incompetent  compositor  or,  as 
he  thinks,  a  transcriber.  Some  speech-prefixes  (iii.  i .  46— 
58;  iv.  2.  1—8;  iv.  4.  5—6)  are  incorrect  or  wrongly 
placed.  There  is  no  extensive  mislineation.  Hereand  there 
a  few  lines  are  wrongly  printed  as  prose,  doggerel,  or  blank 
verse  respectively.  One  longer  passage  (iii.  2.  169-85)  is 
in  prose  instead  of  verse  throughout,  and  may  have  been 
written  in  a  margin.  The  'Enter  Peter'  at  iv.  4. 69,  if  it  does 
not  yield  an  actor's  name,  may  mean  that  the  Petruchio 
scene  (iv.  5)  had  been  started  upon  here,  and  then  deferred 
for  the  addition  of  another  41  lines  to  the  sub-plot  scene 
iv.  4.  There  are  some  slight  inconsistencies  of  action, 
such  as  Petruchio's  call  (iv.  i.  154)  for  a  'cousin  Fer- 
dinand', who  never  appears.  I  see  nothing  here  which  a 
compositor  might  not  produce  from  careless  or  hasty  copy, 
which  incorporated  some  afterthoughts,  and  in  which  (cf. 
p.  204)  the  speech-prefixes  had  been  written  later  than  the 
text. 

The  use  of  a  collaborator  may  in  itself  point  to  haste. 
The  play  has  been  variously  dated*  It  is  sometimes  put 
about  ^1598,  because  Meres  does  not  name  it,  and  the 
induction  has  affinities  of  matter  with  Henry  IV.  But  its 
metrical  features  are  consistent  with  1594,  and  it  ifiay 
quite  well  be  the  Love  Labours  Won  of  Meres.  This  is 
largely  an  application  of  the  method  of  exclusions,  since 
there  is  no  other  extant  comedy,  at  any  rate  in  its  present 
form,  available  (cf.  p.  272).  The  title  itself  might  fit 
almost  any  sentimental  plot.  Perhaps  the  fourfold  refer- 


Chap.  IX        THE  TAMING  OF  THE  SHREW  327 

ence  (v.  2.  69,  112,  116,  186)  to  Petruchio's  winning  of 
his  wager  is  relevant.  The  title-page  of  A  Shrew  shows 
that  it  was  played  by  Pembroke's  men,  who  emerge  late 
in  1 592,  and  were  broken  by  September  1 593.1  A  perfor- 
mance (App.  D)  for  Henslowe  on  13  June  1594  was  pre- 
sumably by  the  Chamberlain's,  and  Henslowe's  *A  Shrowe* 
need  not  prejudice  opinion  as  to  which  version  was  then 
used.  On  the  whole  I  think  it  probable  that  A  Shrew 
originally  belonged  to  the  Alleyn  company,  that  it  was 
handed  by  them  to  Pembroke's  in  1592  and  recovered  in 
1593,  that  it  was  allocated  to  the  Chamberlain's  on  the 
reconstitution  of  companies  in  1594,  and  that  they  rather 
hastily  based  The  Shrew  upon  it,  sold  the  old  book  to  the 
printers  in  May,  a;id  played  the  new  one  in  June.  About 
the  exact  details  of  this  I  should  not  like  to  be  dogmatic. 
Henslowe  does  not  mark  the  piece  cne'  and  it  is  possible 
that  the  Chamberlain's  began  by  playing  A  Shrew  and 
revised  it  a  little  later  in  1594. 

A  quite  distinct  theory  of  the  relation  between  A  Shrew 
and  The  Shrew  has  been  outlined  by  Alexander2  and 
accepted  by  Wilson.  According  to  this,  A  Shrew  is  not 
the  source  of  The  Shrew,  but  a  'bad  Quarto*  of  it,  due  to 
an  attempt  of  Pembroke's,  after  owning  The  Shrew  and 
selling  it  in  1593,  to  reproduce  it  from  memory,  with  the 
aid  of  a  good  deal  of  rewriting,  and  to  resume  playing  it  in 
the  winter  of  1593-4*  I  am  quite  unable  to  believe  that 
A  Shrew  had  any  such  origin.  Its  textual  relation  to  The 
Shrew  does  not  bear  any  analogy  to  that  of  other  'bad 
Quartos'  to  the  legitimate  texts  from  which  they  were 
memorized.  The  nomenclature,  which  at  least  a  memorizer 
can  recall,  is  entirely  different  The  verbal  parallels  are 
limited  to  stray  phrases,  most  frequent  in  the  main  plot, 

A  Shrew.  He  picks  up  phrases  from  Holinshed  and 
North  in  just  the  same  way.  It  is  true,  as  shown  by  Hick- 
son  long  ago,  that  some  of  these  phrases  have  more  point 
in  The  Shrew  than  in  A  Shrew.  But  this  might  be  the 
case  on  either  hypothesis,  and  the  A  Shrew  versions  are 

1  £&.  Stage,  XL  128$  cf.  p.  46.  »  T.LS.  for  16  September  19*6. 


328  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

not  unintelligible  as  they  stand.  Alexander's  strongest 
argument  is  that  the  sub-plot  of  The  Shrew  comes  closer 
than  that  of  A  Shrew  to  the  ultimate  source  in  Ariosto's 
/  Suppositi.  This  again  is  true,  and  I  take  it  that  Shake- 
speare's collaborator  made  use  of  I  Suppositi  or  its  transla- 
tion in  Gascoigne's  Supposes,  as  well  as  of  A  Shrew.1 

Shakespeare  himself  probably  used  no  other  literary 
source  than  A  Shrew,  which  had  already  incorporated 
widespread  story-motives  in  the  'taming*  itself  and  the 
transformed  drunkard.  He  worked  Warwickshire  reminis- 
cences into  the  induction.  Christophero  Sly  is  in  A  Shrew, 
but  Stephen  Sly  (Ind.  ii.  95)  figures  in  the  enclosures 
controversy;  Marion  Hacket,  the  fat  ale-wife  of  Wincot,2 
came  from  just  over  the  Gloucestershire  border  (App, 
C,  no.  viii);  and  Burton  Heath3  is  presumably  Barton- 
on-the-Heath,  where  dwelt  Shakespeare's  cousins,  the 
Lamberts  (App.  A,  no.  iv).  A  note  in  the  records  of 
the  Stationers'  Company  for  1596  of  a  suppressed  ballad 
called  'The  taminge  of  a  shrewe'  is  untrustworthy  (App.  F, 
no.  xi  (^)). 

The  1631  title-page  shows  that  the  play  held  the 
seventeenth-century  stage,  and  a  court  performance  of 
26  November  1 633  is  on  record  (App.  D).  A  Jacobean 
revival  may  be  pointed  to  by  the  counterblast  in  Fletcher's 
The  Womarf3  Prize  or  the  Tamer  Tamed,  of  which,  how- 
ever, the  date  is  very  uncertain,4  and  by  an  allusion  in 
S.  Rowlands,  Whole  Crew  of  Kind  Gossips  (1609): 

The  chiefest  Art  I  have  I  will  bestow 
About  a  worke  cald  taming  of  the  Shrow. 

The  divisions  in  F  are  very  irregular.  A  heading  for  ii  has 
probably  been  omitted  by  accident.  But  v  consists  of  only 
one  scene  of  189  lines,  and  the  whole  play  is  rather  short. 
Possibly  a  final  Sly  scene  has  been  excised  for  some  reason 
of  staging.  There  was  one  in  A  Shrew,  and  The  Shrew 
seems  rather  incomplete  without  one. 

*  EHx.  Stage,  w.  321.  4  Eltx*  Stage,  iii.  222;  Oliphant, 
9  Ind.  ii.  22 .                                        Beaumont  and  Fletcher*  151. 

*  Ibid.  ii.  19. 


Chap.  IX  329 

VIII.   THE  TWO  GENTLEMEN  OF  VERONA 

[Fi.  1623.]  [Catalogue]  The  two  Gentlemen  of  Verona. 
[Comedies,  pp.  20-38 ;  sign.  B  4V-D  iv.  Head-title]  The 
Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  [Running-title]  The  two 
Gentlemen  of  Verona.  [At  end]  The  names  of  all  the 
Actors. 

[Acts  and  sec  marked.  The  names  of  all  the  Actors' at  end.  Pages 
37  and  38  have  the  running-tide  for  M.W*  in  error.] 
Modern  Editions.  R.  W.  Bond  (1906,  Arden)\  A.  T.  Quiller- 
Couch  and  J.  D.  Wilson  (1921,  C.U.P.)-,  K.  Young  (1924,  Yale}. 
[Dissertation.  F.  G.  Fleay,  On  the  Date  and  Composition  of  T.G.  (1874, 
N.8.S.  Trans.  287,  with  comment  by  F.  J.  FurnivaU);  J.  Zupitza,  V&er 
die  Fabel  in  Shs  T.G.  (1888,  J.  xxiii.  i);  H.  F.  BrOndel,  Shs  T.G.  in 
englischen  Buhnenbearbeitung  (1909);  H.  Norpoth,  Mctrisch-chronolo- 
gische  Untersuchung  von  Shs  T.G.  (1916);  J.  M.  Robertson,  The  Author- 
ship of  T.G.  (1923,  Sh.  Canon,  ii.  i);  O.  J.  Campbell,  T.G.  and  Italian 
Comedy  (1925,  Michigan  Studies)*,  T.  P.  Harrison,  Concerning  T.G.  and 
Montemayo/s  Diana  (1926,  M.L.N.  xli.  251). 

The  F  text  is  fairly  free  from  misprints  and  mislineations. 
All  the  entries  and  nearly  all  the  exits  within  the  scenes 
are  unmarked,  and  there  are  no  stage-directions,  except 
final  exits  and  entries  at  the  beginning  of  each  scene  for  all 
its  characters  in  the  order,  doubtfully  correct  for  iv.  2,  of 
their  appearance.  Wilson  draws  the  inference  that  the 
text  was  'assembled'  from  'parts'  with  the  aid  of  a  'plot*. 
There  are  considerable  difficulties  (cf.  p.  153)  about  any 
theory  of  'assembling',  but  perhaps  the  case  for  it  is 
stronger  in  Two  Gentlemen  than  elsewhere.  In  a  few 
passages  prose  is  printed  in  irregular  capitalized  lines. 
Wilson  also  thinks  that  the  play  has  been  abbreviated  and 
added  to  by  an  adapter.  I  do  not  accept  the  mingling  of  prose 
and  verse  in  certain  dialogues,  or  the  presence  of  blank- 
verse  rhythms  in  prose,  or  mentions  of  personages  who  do 
not  appear,  as  evidence  of  this.  They  are  common  features 
(cf.  pp.  1 8 1,  230-4)  of  Shakespeare's  plays.  There  may 
have  been  some  abbreviation.  The  text  is  rather  short,  and 
some  of  the  scenes  (ii.  2 ;  v.  i ;  v.  3)  are  summary,  and  there 
are  a  few  abrupt  short  lines  and  corruptions  which  may 
indicate  'cuts'.  But  I  do  not  think  that  any  scenes  or 


330  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

incidents  have  been  omitted.  Time  is  foreshortened  here 
and  there,  but  this  easily  passes  on  the  stage.  Nor  do  I  see 
the  hand  of  an  adapter.  There  are  inconsistencies  of 
action  and  nomenclature,  but  these  need  point  to  no  more 
than  careless  original  work.  Milan,  Verona,  and  Padua 
are  hopelessly  confused.  Apparently  Shakespeare  at  first 
meant  the  main  action  to  be  at  an  emperor's  court  at  Milan; 
then  altered  it  to  a  duke's  court  at  Verona,  and  forgot  to 
make  the  indications  uniform.  Verona  is  nowhere  said  to 
be  the  home  of  Proteus,  Valentine,  and  Julia;  in  fact  they 
go  from  home  by  sea.  Padua  (ii.  5.  i)  must  be  a  slip,  any- 
how. Wilson  suggests  that  the  part  of  Speed  is  inter- 
polated, but  it  seems  inextricable  from  that  of  Launce  in 
ii.  5  and  iii,  I,  and  i.  2. 38  shows  that  Valentine  had  a  page. 
There  is  some  poor  writing  towards  the  end  of  the  play, 
especially  in  iv.  i  and  in  v.  4,  which  is  also  bad  in  senti- 
ment. But  the  badness  is  not  necessarily  un-Shakespearean, 

Robertson  thinks  that  Two  Gentlemen  is  a  comedy  by 
Greene,  and  that  Shakespeare  only  altered  the  opening  and 
inserted  or  retouched  some  later  passages.  He  lays  stress 
on  the  poverty  of  much  of  the  comic  relief  and  on  the  end- 
stopped  iambic  versification.  It  is  true  that  the  iambic  norm 
is  less  varied  by  trochees  and  pyrrhics  than  is  usual  with 
Shakespeare,  and  possible  that,  as  a  beginner  in  romantic 
comedy,  he  was  influenced'by  Greene,  as  he  certainly  was 
by  Lyly.  But  Greene  did  not  write  the  play ;  if  for  no  other 
reason,  because  he  never  used  so  many  double  endings. 

The  date  can  hardly  be  fixed  with  precision.  There  is 
no  external  evidence  beyond  the  mention  by  Meres  in 
1598.  Two  allusions  to  Hero  and  Leander  (i.  i.  21; 
iii.  1. 1 19)  are  not  necessarily  later  than  Marlowe's  poem 
of  1593.  Allusions  to  'the  wars'  and  travels  to  dis- 
cover islands  (L  3.  8),  to  pestilence  (ii.  i.  22),  and  to  the 
winning  and  losing  of  love's  labour  (i.  i.  32)  are  even 
more  inconclusive.  The  'print'  in  which  Speed  found  ii,  i. 
171-4  has  not  been  traced.  The  play  has  affinities  of 
motive,  manner,  and  vocabulary  to  the  Comedy  of  Errors, 
to  Romeo  and  Juliet,  Merchant  of  Venice,  and  others  riper 
than  itself,  and  to  some  of  the  Sonnets.  This,  together  with 


Chap.  IX    THE  TWO  GENTLEMEN  OF  VERONA  331 

the  inequality  of  workmanship,  led  Fleay  to  conjecture  that 
it  is  of  two  dates.  According  to  one  of  several  forms 
which  his  theory  took,  Shakespeare  only  finished  the  play 
after  an  interval;  according  to  another  it  was  written 
about  1591  with  a  collaborator,  whose  work  Shakespeare 
replaced  by  his  own  in  1595.  The  notion  of  a  diversity  of 
dates  has  received  some  support,  but  I  think  that  a  single 
date,  early  in  the  season  of  1594-5,  really  meets  all  the 
conditions,  and  that  the  outset  of  the  career  of  the  Cham- 
berlain's men  was  a  not  unlikely  time  for  hasty  composi- 
tion. No  performance  of  the  play  is  on  record. 

The  only  clear  source  is  the  story  of  Felix  and  Felis- 
mena  in  Jorge  de  Montemayor's  Diana  Enamorada.  If 
Shakespeare  could  not  read  Spanish,  he  may  have  used 
the  translation  of  Bartholomew  Yonge,  printed  in  1598 
but  finished  sixteen  years  earlier,  or  the  French  translation 
of  Nicolas  Collin  (1578,  1587),  or  the  play  of  'Felix  & 
Philiomena'  given  at  court  by  the  Queen's  men  in  I585-1 
Montemayor's  story  is  varied  and  elaborated  in  Two  Gentle- 
men,  especially  .by  the  introduction  of  Valentine,  and  with 
him  the  motive  of  the  conflict  of  love  and  friendship. 
Shakespeare  is  obsessed  by  this  theme  in  the  Sonnets, 
and  it  is  so  common  in  Renaissance  literature  that  slight 
analogies  to  Two  Gentlemen  in  Lyly's  Euphues  and  Endi- 
miony  Barnabe  Rich's  Apollonius  and  Silla  (cf.  p.  407), 
Fedele  and  Fortunio*  and  elsewhere  become  of  little  im- 
portance. There  is  a  rather  closer  resemblance  in  the 
German  play  of  Julio  and  Hyppolita>  printed  in  Engelische 
Comedien  und  Tragedien  (1620).  But  this  is  a  tragedy,  and 
its  relation  to  Two  Gentlemen  or  any  possible  forerunner  is 
quite  uncertain.  Campbell  notes  that  many  features  of 
Two  Gentlemen  are  commonplaces  in  Italian  comedy. 

IX.    LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST 
[Q  1. 1598.]  [Ornament]  A  Pleasant  Conceited  Comedie 
Called,  Loues  labors  lost.  As  it  was  presented  before 
her  Highnes  this  last  Christmas.   Newly  corrected  and 
augmented  By  W.  Shakespere.   [Ornament]    Imprinted 

1  £/&.  Stage,  iv.  160.  2  1WA  fr.  13. 


332  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

at  London  by  W<illiam>  W<hite>  for  Cutbert  Burby. 
1598.    [No  Head-title.    Running  title'}    A  pleasant  con- 
ceited Comedie:  called  Loues  Labor's  Lost. 
Facsimile.  W.  Griggs  (1880,  Sh.  Q.  v,  ed.  F.  J.  Furnivall). 
[S.R.  1607.]  22  January.  Master  Linge  Entred  for  his 
copies  by  direccon  of  A  Court  and  with  consent  of  Master 
Burby  vnder  his  handwrytynge  These,  iij  copies,  viz.  ... 
Loues  Labour  Loste . . .  (Arber,  iii.  337). 
[S.R.  1607.]  19  Novembris.  John  Smythick.  Entred  for 
his  copies  vnder  thandes  of  the  wardens,  these  bookes  follow- 
inge  Whiche  dyd  belonge  to  Nicholas  Lynge.    viz.  .  .  . 
1 1  Loues  Labour  Lost.  vjd  . . .  (Arber,  iii.  365). 

[Fi.  1623.]    [Catalogue']  Loues  Labour  lost.   [Comedies, 
pp.  122-44;  sign-  L  iv-M  6V.   Head-  and  Running-titles] 
Loues  Labour's  lost. 
[Acts  marked,  with  iv  repeated  for  v.] 

[Q2.  1631.]  Loues  Labours  lost.  A  Wittie  And  Pleasant 
Comedie,  As  it  was  Acted  by  his  Maiesties  Seruants  at  the 
Blacke-Friers  and  the  Globe.  Written  by  William  Shake- 
speare. [Smethwick's  device  (McKerrow  376)]  London, 
Printed  by  W.  S.  for  lohn  Smethwicke,  and  are  to  be  sold  at 
his  Shop  in  Saint  Dunstones  Church-yard  vnder  the  Diall. 
1631.  \Head-  and  Running-titles']  Loues  Labour's  lost. 
Parallel-Text.  I.  H.  Platt  (1906,  Bankside^  xxi). 
Modern  Editions.  H.  H.  Furness  (1904,  New  Variorum^f}\  H.  C. 
Hart  (1906,  Arden}\  H.  B.  Charlton  (1917,  Heath)\  A.  T. 
Quiller-Couch  and  J.  D.  Wilson  (1923,  C.  U.P.)\  W.  L.  Cross  and 
C.  F.  T.  Brooke  (1925,  Yale}. 

[Dissertations.  S.  Lee,  A  New  Study  ofL.L.L.  (1880,  Gentleman**  Mag.)\ 
F.  G.  Fleay,  Si.  and  Puritanism  (1884,  Anglia,  vii.  223);  G.  Sarrazin, 
Die  Entstehungszeit  von  L.L.L.  (1895,  J.  xxxi.  200);  J.  de  Perott, 
Eine  tfanucht  Parallels  zu  L.L.L.  (1908,  J.  xliv.  151);  J.  Phelps, 
Father  Parsons  in  SL  (1915,  Archiv,  czxxiii.  66);  H.  B,  Charlton,  A  Dis- 
puted Passage  in  Z.L.Z.  (1917,  M.L.R.  xii.  279),  A  Textual  Note  on  L.L.L. 
(1917^  3  Lilarary9vw.  355),  Tie  Date  of  L.L.L.  (1918,  AfJLfc.xiii.  257, 
387);].  M.  Robertson,  LJ.J,.  (1917  ,Sh*  and  Chapman,  107);  H.  D.  Gray, 
Tie  Original  Version  of  L.L.L.  (1918);  A.  Lefranc,  L.L.L.  (1919,  Sous 
Le  Masque  de  Si.  5. 17);  A.  K.  Gray,  Tif  Secret  ofL.L.L.  (1924,  PM,LJi. 
xsxix.  581);  O.  J.  Campbell,  L.L.L.  Re-studied  (192$,  Michigan  Studies)^ 
A.  R.  Bayley,  OrMtms,  tie  it// (192$,  N.Q.  cxlviii.  399, 417). 


Chap.  IX  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST  333 

Qi  is  a  badly  printed  text,  with  many  'literal'  and  other 
errors  and  blundering  punctuation.  It  preserves  a  number 
of  abnormal  spellings.   There  are  slight  variants  in  the 
extant  examples.    Fi  was  set  up  from  a  Qi  in  which 
there  may  have  been  others.  But  the  F  printer  has  made 
many  corrections  and  introduced  as  many  fresh  errors,  of 
which  Greg  gives  an  interesting  analysis  in  R.E.S.  i.  471. 
Wilson  shows  that  the  example  used  had  already  been 
altered  in  the  theatre  by  a  revision  of  the  stage-directions 
and  speech-prefixes.  Q2  was  set  up  from  F.  The  absence  of. 
an  original  entry  in  the  Stationers'  Register  and  the  'Newly 
corrected  and  augmented'  on  the  title-page  of  Qi  suggest 
that  it  may,  like  the  Q2  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  where  the 
same  conditions  recur,  have  been  preceded  by  a  surrepti- 
tious print.  If  so,  the  title-page  is  not  in  itself  evidence  of 
anything  more  than  revision  of  the  printing,  as  distinct 
from  a  rewriting  of  the  play.   But  a  rewriting  has  been 
suspected  on  other  grounds.  Two  passages,  iv.  3.  296- 
317  and  v.  2.  827-32,  are  clearly  duplicated  by  what 
follows  in  each  case,  and  Wilson  is  probably  right  in  sug- 
gesting that  they  were  marked  for  deletion  and  the  marks 
disregarded  by  the  printer.  But  it  is  by  no  means  so  clear 
that  these  changes  were  made  at  a  rewriting  of  the  play; 
the  cancelled  passages  can  be  just  as  well  interpreted  as 
false  starts  at  the  time  of  the  original  writing.  A  half-line 
left  in  Q  before  iv.  3.  3 17,  but  omitted  in  modern  editions, 
looks  like  an  abandoned  first  attempt  to  amend  that  line, 
before  the  fresh  start  was  made.    Similarly,  the  first  line 
of  the  rejected  Berowne-Rosaline  dialogue  in  v.  2.  827- 
32  was  immediately  used  to  open  a  Dumaine-Katharine 
dialogue,  and  the  opening  of  a  new  Berowne-Rosaline 
dialogue  deferred  to  847.    Something  has  also  gone 
wrong  with  ii.  i.   Here  Berowne  is  clearly  meant  to  be 
paired  with  Rosaline  throughout,  Longaville  with  Maria, 
Dumaine  with  Katharine.    But  the  arrangement  is  not 
consistently  followed.    Possibly  Shakespeare  has  been 
careless;  possibly  confusion  has  arisen  through  an  attempt 
to  set  up  Love's  Labour  'j  Lost  like  Romeo  and  Juliet  fav^ 
by  correcting  a  bad  Quarto.  I  do  not  think  that  Wilson 


334  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

has  given  a  satisfactory  explanation  in  terms  of  a  rewriting. 
He  finds,  however,  further  evidence  of  this  in  (a)  small 
typographical  variations  and  dislocations  in  Q,  which  are 
capable  of  several  explanations;  (£)  a  supposed  difference 
in  the  character  of  the  stage-directions  in  different  places, 
which  seems  to  me  imaginary,  as  the  stage-directions  are 
comparatively  slight  throughout;  and  (c)  the  use,  here  of 
personal,  and  there  of  generic,  descriptions  in  stage- 
directions  and  speech-prefixes.  And  he  assigns  to  a  first 
'draft',  more  or  less  altered  on  revision,  i.  i,  2 ;  ii.  i ;  iii.  i. 
69-end;  iv.  2,  3;  and  to  a  revised  version,  with  traces  of 
the  first  draft,  iii.  i.  1-68;  iv.  i;  v.  The  variations  of 
nomenclature,  frequent  enough  in  other  plays,  are  more 
conspicuous  in  Love's  Labour's  Lost  than  elsewhere.  We 
get,  in  full  or  abbreviation,  Navarro  and  King  for  Ferdi-  . 
nand,  Braggart  for  Armado,  Pedant  for  Holofernes, 
Curate  for  Nathaniel,  Wench  and  Maid  for  Jaquenetta, 
Clown  for  Costard,  Constable  for  Anthony  or  Dull,  and 
i,  2,  3  Lady  for  Maria,  Katharine,  and  Rosaline.  Wilson 
uses  some  of  these;  others,  which  he  does  not  use,  do  not 
square  with  his  theory  that  the  use  of  generic  names  points 
to  rewriting.  But  this  theory  I  do  not  (cf.  p.  232)  accept. 
Somewhat  exceptional  are  the  variations  of  Duke  for  King 
and  Queen  for  Princess,  since  these  appear  in  the  text, 
and  are  inconsistent,  except  that  the  Princess  apparently 
becomes  Queen  of  France  on  her  father's  death  in  v.  2, 
and  is  thereafter  addressed  as  'Maiestie*  instead  of  'Grace'. 
H.  D.  Gray  has  made  an  independent  attempt  to  trace  the 
lines  of  a  rewriting.  He  supposes  that  the  original  play 
ended  with  a  complete  rejection  of  the  lovers;  that 
Rosaline  was  transformed  from  a  fair  into  a  swarthy 
beauty;  that  Holofernes  and  Nathaniel  were  only  intro- 
duced at  the  rewriting;  and  that  this  explains  the  differ- 
ence between  the  planning  and  performance  of  the 
Worthies*  The  view  seems  to  me  quite  fantastic.  Love- 
comedies  do  not  end  with  rejections,  Rosaline  is  through- 
out white-skinned;  only  her  hair  and  brows  are  black; 
there  is  a  similar  difference  between  the  planning  and  the 
performance  of  the  play  in  Midsummer-Night's  Dream. 


Chap.  IX  LOVE'S  LABOUR'S  LOST  335 

Both  Wilson  and  Gray  find  their  new  matter  mainly  at  the 
end.  The  great  length  of  v.  2  is  not,  I  think,  relevant. 
Love's  Labour  *s  Lost  does  not  fall  into  acts.  F  might  have 
divided  better  than  it  did,  but  probably  there  were  no 
intervals  in  the  play  as  originally  given.  It  is  possible  that, 
if  a  'surreptitious*  early  Q  ever  turns  upy  some  of  the 
supposed  evidence  for  revision  and  other  features  of  the 
text  may  prove  to  be  due  to  an  attempt,  as  in  Romeo  and 
Juliet^  to  use  a  heavily  corrected  example  of  that  as  'copy' 
for  Qi. 

So  far  as  style  is  concerned,  I  see  no  evidence  for  two 
dates,  and  no  evidence  for  a  very  early  date.  The  versifica- 
tion is  extremely  adroit,  and  certainly  not  that  of  a  begin- 
ner. I  regard  the  play  as  the  earliest  of  the  lyrical  group 
which  includes  Midsummer-Night's  Dream,  Romeo  and 
Juliet,  and  Richard  77,  and  I  put  it  in  1595.  The  variety 
entertainment  at  the  close  links  it  with  Midsummer-Night's 
Dream  and  the  black-browed  and  black-eyed  Rosaline 
with  the  Sonnets.  Nor  are  the  numerous  topical  and 
literary  allusions  inconsistent  with  this  date.  The  'Mon- 
archo'  (iv.  I.  101)  can  in  any  case  be  a  tradition  only,  as 
his  epitaph  in  T.  Churchyard,  Chance  (i  580),  shows  him 
then  dead.  Charlton  has  traced  the  'first  and  second 
cause'  in  duelling  (i.  2.  183)  to  Segar's  Book  of  Honor  and 
Arms  (1590).  The  'dancing  horse'  (i.  2.  57)  of  John 
Banks  was  travelling  from  1591  until  long  after  1595* 
There  is  no  reason  whatever  to  suppose  that  Elizabeth 
shot  a  deer  with  a  bow  (iv.  i)  for  the  first  or  the  last  time  at 
Cowdray  in  1 59 1 .  'Lord  have  mercy  on  us'  ^.2.419)  was 
a  formula  used  in  theplague  of  1592-3,  but  by  no  means 
for  the  first  time.1  There  may  be  a  reference  in  'saved 
by  merit'  as  a  'heresy  in  fair,  fit  for  these  days'  (iv.  i .  2 1)  to 
the  conversion  of  Henri  IV  on  25  July  1593.  There  must 
be  a  reference  in  'piercing  a  hogshead'  (iv.  2. 89)  to  the  wit- 
exchange  between  Nashe  and  Gabriel  Harvey,  begun  by 
Harvey's  Pierce' s  Supererogation  (i  593).  If,  as  seems  prob- 
able, iv.  3.  346-7  echo  Chapman's  Shadow  of  Night,  that 
was  printed  in  1 594.  The  Muscovite  mask  (v.  2)  can  have 

1  F.  P.  Wikon,  The  P&gut  in  SA.*f  Lmu&n,  63. 


336  PLA.YS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

nothing  to  do  with  the  wooing  of  Lady  Mary  Hastings 
for  the  Emperor  of  Muscovy  in  1583,  but  does  reflect  an 
English  interest  in  Russian  affairs,  and  perhaps  derives 
from  the  similar  use  of  Russian  apparel  on  6  January  1595 
in  the  Gray's  Inn  revels  which  were  also  adorned  by  Comedy 
of  Errors.  Robert  Southwell,  in  prison  from  20  June  1592 
and  executed  on  21  February  1595,  wrote  some  lines  on 
eyes  (App.  B,  no.  xi)  which  have  been  supposed  to  echo 
Berowne's  disquisition  in  iv.  3,  but  it  is  probable  that 
they  are  of  earlier  date.  There  is  an  analogy  to  the 
jest  on  'guerdon'  and  'remuneration*  (iii.  i.  170)  in  J,  M., 
A  Health  to  the  Gentlemanly  Profession  of  Servingmen 
(S.R.  15  May  1598),  sign.  I,  but  nothing  to  determine 
priority.  Obviously,  if  Love's  Labour's  Lost  was  revised, 
some  of  these  passages  may  belong  to  the  second  version. 
But  I  find  nothing  which  is  necessarily  later  than 
1 595.  The  jest  on*  Ajax  and  the  lion  sitting  on  a  close-stool 
(v.  2.  579)  is  based  on  the  arms  of  Alexander,  as  given  in 
Gerard  "L&^Accedens  ofArmorie  (i  563,  r  59 1),  and  is  more 
likely  to  have  given  a  hint  to  than  taken  one  from  Haring- 
ton's  Metamorphosis  of  Ajax  (1596).  Shakespeare,  if  the 
borrower,  would  have  worked  in  'metamorphosis'.  There 
may  be  other  topical  allusions  in  an  obviously  satirical  play 
over  which  time  has  drawn  a  veil.  Many  attempts  have 
been  made  to  trace  portraits  in  the  exponents  of  the 
Worthies.  Armado  has  been  identified  with  the  Mon- 
archo,  Antonio  Perez,  Lyly,  Philip  of  Spain,  and 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh;  Holofernes  with  John  Florio, 
Bishop  Cooper,  Thomas  Harriot,  Chapman,  and  one 
Richard  Lloyd,  who  wrote  lines  on  the  Worthies  in  1584; 
Moth  with  La  Mothe-F&ielon,  a  French  ambassador,  as 
far  back  as  1 568-75,  and  with  Nashe ;  and  so  forth.  Most 
of  this  is  mere  beating  the  air.  As  Campbell  points  out,  this 
underworld  of  Love's  Labour 's  Lost  represents  the  stock 
masks  of  Italian  comedy,  the  capitano  and  his  zanni,  the 
fedante  or  dottore^  the  parasite  or  affamato,  the  clown,  the 
magistrate.  It  does  not  follow  that  there  may  not  be 
personal  touches  in  the  reproduction  of  them.  Moth,  like 
Nashe  by  Greene  and  Meres,  is  called  (iii.  i .  67)  a  'Juvenal'. 


Chap.  IX  LOVE'S  LABOUR 'S  LOST  337 

Holofernes  gets  his  name  from  Rabelais,  and  Rombus 
in  Sidney's  May  Lady,  an  entertainment  of  about  1578, 
is  a  rather  remote  analogy.1  Both  Chapman  and  Gabriel 
Harvey  may  have  contributed  something  to  Holo- 
fernes^ but  it  is  pressing  the  thing  too  far  to  speak  of 
portraits'.  If  the  Q  reading  in  iv.  3.  25$  *Schoole  of 
night'  is  correct,  there  may  be  a  further  allusion  to  Chap- 
man's Shadow  of  Night>  in  which  learning  is  called  upon 
to  shun  the  day,  and  perhaps  also  to  Sir  Walter  Raleigh's 
alleged  'School  of  Atheism,'  which  Chapman  seems  to 
laud  in  his  epistle,  although  apparently  only  knowing  of 
it  through  Matthew  Roydon.  But  if  he  was  right  in 
regarding  Sir  George  Carey  as  a  member,  there  could  be 
no  'attack'  by  Shakespeare,  since  Carey  was  son  of  Lord 
Hunsdon,  and  later  himself  the  patron  of  Shakespeare's 
company.  No  source  is  known  for  the  main  plot.  If  there 
was  one,  it  may  have  helped  to  account  for  the  Ferdinand, 
Duke,  and  Queen.  No  Ferdinand  was  ever  King  of 
Navarre.  But  Ferdinand  is  given  (ii.  i.  163)  a  father 
Charles  and  the  dispute  as  to  an  inherited  debt  of  200,000 
crowns,  for  which  Ferdinand  holds  part  of  Aquitaine, 
bears  some  analogy  to  financial  transactions  between  a 
historic  Charles  of  Navarre  and  the  King  of  France 
about  1425.  Probably,  however,  the  visit  of  the  Princess 
to  Ferdinand  rests  upon  something  more  recent  than 
1425,  in  a  visit  to  Henri  IV  at  N£rac  in  1578  by  his  wife 
Marguerite  de  Valois,  a  princess  of  France.  They  were 
separated,  and  questions  of  dowry,  involving  towns  in 
Aquitaine,  were  at  issue.  Marguerite  describes  the  visit 
and  its  festivals  in  herMemoires.  She  was  accompanied  by  a 
troop  of  ladies,  and  temporarily  renewed  amorous  relations 
with  her  husband.  The  Memoires  also  tell  the  pathetic 


story  of  the  death,  two  years  before,  of  HS&ne  de  Tournon, 
which  seems  to  be  alluded  to  in  v.  2. 1 3-1 7.  It  took  place  in 
Brabant  (ii.  1.114),  whither  Marguerite  went  after  a  visit  to 
her  brother,  the  Due  d'Alen^on  (ii.  I. 61)  in  1578.  Shake- 


her  brother,  the  Due  d'Alen^on  (ii.  I. 61)  in  1578.  Shake- 
speare can  hardly  have  known  all  this  at  first  hand.  Neither 
the  Memoires  nor  the  accounts  of  Henri  and  Marguerite  by 


1  E&c.  Stage,  ili.  491. 

3I42.X  Z 


338  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

Brantdme  and  others  were  yet  available  in  print.  Unless 
there  was  a  source-play,  some  English  or  French  traveller 
must  have  been  an  intermediary.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
names  of  Berowne,  Longaville,  and  Dumaine  would  be 
well  enough  known  in  England  from  events  of  later  date. 
Armand  and  Charles  Gontaut,  successive  Dues  de  Biron, 
and  Henri,  Due  de  Longueville,  were  supporters  of  Henri 
IV  inhiswarsof  1589-93  for  the  crown  of  France.  Charles, 
Due  de  Mayenne,  was  his  opponent.  He  has  probably  been 
confused  with  another  supporter,  Mar&hal  D'Aumont. 

Love's  Labour's  Lost  suggests  a  courtly  rather  than  a 
popular  audience.  Wilson,  who  puts  his  first  version  in 
1593,  supposes  it  played  at  the  Earl  of  Southampton's 
house  in  plague-time.  A.  K.  Gray  relates  it  to  the  Titch- 
field  visit  in  the  progress  of  1591, x  and  thinks  that  South- 
ampton hoped  to  hint  by  the  denouement  at  the  desirability 
of  a  twelve-months'  respite  before  his  marriage  to  Elizabeth 
Vere.  Southampton  is  the  ready  deus  ex  machina  of 
Shakespearean  speculation.  If  the  title-page  of  Qi  does 
not  merely  repeat  an  earlier  one,  the  court  performance 
to  which  it  refers  must,  on  Greg's  view  as  to  the  dates  on 
play  title-pages  (cf.  p.  175),  have  been  in  1597-8.  The 
abrupt  ending,  'The  words  of  Mercury  are  harsh  after  the 
songs  of  Apollo',  which  was  altered  in  F,  looks  like  the 
beginning  of  an  epilogue  or  of  a  presenter's  speech  for  a 
following  mask.  Mercury  has  nothing  to  do  with  what 
precedes.  There  was  a  revival  in  January  1 605  and  a  per- 
formance at  Cranborne's  house  or  Southampton's  (App. 
D).  F  alters  'God'  into  'loue'  in  one  only  (v.  2.  316)  of 
twenty  cases.  The  1631  title-page  shows  that  the  play 
held  the  stage  after  the  King's  men  acquired  the  Black- 
friars* 

X.    ROMEO  AND  JULIET 

[Q 1. 1597,]  [Ornament]  An  Excellent  conceited  Trage- 
die  of  Romeo  and  luliet.  As  it  hath  been  often  (with  great 
applause)  plaid  publiquely,  by  the  right  Honourable  the 
L.  of  Hunsdon  Ms  Seruants.  [Danter's  device  (McKerrow 


Chap.  IX  ROMEO  AND  JULIET  339 

281)]  London,  Printed  by  lohn  Danter.  1597  [Head-title] 
The  most  excellent  Tragedie  of  Romeo  and  luliet.  [Run- 
ning-titles] The  most  excellent  Tragedie,  of  Romeo  and 
luliet.  (sign.  A-D) ;  The  excellent  Tragedie  of  Romeo  and 
luliet.  (sign.  E-K)]. 

[A  different  type  begins  with  sign.  E  at  ii.  3.  82,  and  from  the  begin- 
ning of  iii.  5  the  text  is  divided  by  ornaments,  apparently  marking  off 
scenes.] 

Facsimile.  C.  Praetorius  (1886,  Sh.  Q.  xxv>  ed.  H,  A.  Evans). 
Reprints.    P.  A.  Daniel  (1874,  N.S.S.);  W.  A.  Wright  (1893, 
Cambridge  Sh.  ix.  639). 
Modern  Edition.  F.  G.  Hubbard  (1924,  Wisconsin  Univ.  Studies). 

[Q2.    1599.]      The    Most   Excellent   and   lamentable 
Tragedie,  or  Romeo  and  luliet.   Newly  corrected,  aug- 
mented, and  amended:   As  it  hath  bene  sundry  times 
publiquely  acted,  by  the  right  Honourable  the  Lord 
Chamberlaine  his  Seruants.  [Creede's  device  (McKerrow 
299)]  London  Printed  by  Thomas  Creede,  for  Cuthbert 
Burby,  and  are  to  be  sold  at  his  shop  neare  the  Exchange. 
1599.    [Head-title]    The  Most  Excellent  and  lamentable 
Tragedie,  of  Romeo  and  luliet.  {Running-title']  The  most 
lamentable  Tragedie  of  Romeo  and  luliet. 
Facsimile.  C.  Praetorius  (1886,  Sh.  Q.  xxvi,  ed.  H.  A.  Evans). 
Reprint.  P.  A.  Daniel  (1874,  N.S.S.). 
Modern  Edition.  P.  A.  Daniel  (1875,  N.S.S.). 
[S.R.  1607.]  22  January  Master  Linge  Entred  for  his 
copies  by  direccon  of  A  Court  and  with  consent  of  Master 
Burby  vnder  his  handwrytinge  These  .iij  copies,  viz. 
Romeo  and  Juliett . . .  (Arber,  iii.  337). 
[S.R.  1607.]  19  Novembris  John  Smythick.    Entred  for 
his  copies  vnder  thandes  of  the  wardens,  these  bpokes 

followinge  Whichedydbelonge  to  Nicholas  Lynge.  viz 

10  Romeo  and  Julett  vjd  (Arber,  iii.  365). 
[£3.  1609.]  The  Most  Excellent  and  Lamentable 
Tragedie,  of  Romeo  and  Juliet.  As  it  hath  beene  sundrie 
times  publiquely  Acted,  by  the  Kings  Maiesties  Seruants 
at  the  Globe.  Newly  corrected,  augmented  and  amended: 
[Ornament]  London  Printed  for  lohn  Smethwick,  and 

Z2 


340  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

are  to  be  sold  at  his  Shop  in  Saint  Dunstanes  Church- 
yard, in  Fleete  streete  vnder  the  DyalL  1 609.  [Head-  and 
Running-titles,  nearly  as  in  Q2.] 

[£4.  n.d]  Titky  with  Smethwick's  device  of  1612-37 
(McKerro  w  3  7  6),  Head-  and  Running-titles^  nearly  as  in  Q3 , 

[In  some  copies  'Written  by  W.  Shake-speare'  precedes 
'Newly  corrected  .  *  .] 

Facsimile.  C.  Pmetorius  (1887,  Sh.  Q.  xxxvi,  ed.  H.  A;  Evans). 
[Fi,  1623.]    [Catalogue]    Romeo  and  Juliet.  [Tragedies, 
PP-  53-79  (omitting  77-8);  sign.  ee3-gg2,  Gg.  Head- 
and  Running-titles]  The  Tragedie  of  Romeo  and  luliet. 
[Act  i,  sc.  i,  marked.] 

[Q4-  1637.]   Title,  with  Written  by  W.  Shake-speare', 
Head-  and   Running-titles,  as   in    £3.     Printed  by  R. 
Young  for  John  Smethwicke,  .  . .  1637. 
Parallel-Texts.  T. Mommsen(i859);  P. A. Daniel(i874, N.S.S.); 
B.  R.  Field  (1889,  Bankside,  v). 

German  Persian.  Rondo  und  Ju/ietta  (Cohn  309,  with  tr.,  from 
Vienna  Hofbibliothek  M S.  13107). 

Modern  Editions.  H.  H.  Furness  (1871,  1909,  New  Variorum)\ 
E.  Dowden  (1900,  Arden}\  W.  H.  Durham  (1917,  Tale], 
[Dissertations.  G.  Pace-Sanfelice,  The  Original  Story  of  R.J.  (1868); 
P.  A.  Daniel,  Brooke's  Romeus  and  Juliet  and  Painter*:  Rhomeo  and 
7«&/fe(x875,&&£.);  K.P.  &\m]zt,DieEntwickelungderSagei>onR.J. 
(1876, 7.  xi.  140),  The  Jolly  Goshawk  (1878,  J.  xiii.  205);  F.  G.  Fleay 
(1877,  Uacmttlaits  Uag^  T.  A.  Spalding,  On  the  First  Quarto  ofR.J. 
(i%7$,N.S.S.  Trans.  58);  R.  Gericke,  R.J.  nach  Shs  MS.  (1879,  J.  xiv. 
207);  N.  Delius,  Brookis  episches  und  Shs  dramatisches  Gedicht  von  R.J. 
(1881,  J.  xvi.  213;  Ml.  ii.  135);  K.  Lentzner,  Zu  R.J.  (1887,  Anglia,  x. 
601);  E.  Dowden,  R.J.  (1888,  Transcripts  and  Studies);  A.  Cohn,  Adrian 
Sevin**  Bearbeitung  der  Sage  von  R.J.  (1889,  J.  xxiv.  122);  L.  Frankd, 
Untersuckungen  zur  Entwickelungsgeschichte  des  Stoffes  von  R.J.  (i 890-1, 
Z.  /.  vergleichende  Litteraturgeschichte,  N.F.  iii.  171;  iv.  48),  Sh.  und 
das  Tagelied  (1893),  Neue  Beitrage  zur  Geschichte  des  Stoffes  von  Shs  R.J. 
(1894,  E.S.  xix.  183);  L.  H.  Fischer,  Die  Sage  von  R.J.  in  deutschen 
Prosa^Darstellungdes  17  Jahrhunderts  (1890,  J.  xxv.  124);  R.  Davidsohn 
(1903,  Deutsche  Rundschau,  cxvii.  419);  C.  F,  McClumpha,  Shs  Sonn.  und 
R.J.  (1904,  J.  xl.  187);  H.  de  W.  Fdler,  Romeo  and  Juliette  (1906, 
M.P.  iv.  75);  W.  Smith,  A  Comic  Version  of  R.J.  (1909,  M.P.  vii.  217); 
M.  J.  Wolff,  Ein  BeitragzurGesch.  des  Stoffes'von  R.J.  (1909,  Z.  /.  ver- 
tfeichende  Litteraturgeschichte,  N.F.  xvii.  439);  S.  B.  Hemingway,  The 


Chap.  IX  ROMEO  AND  JULIET  34I 

Relation  0/M.N.D.  to  R.J.  (1911,  M.ZJV.  zxvi.  78);  H.  D.  Gray,  Romeo, 
Rosaline,  and  Juliet  (1914,  M.LJf.  and*.  209);  A.  Schottner,  Okr  die 
mutmassliche  stenographist  Entstehung  der  gj  von  Shs  R.J.  (1918); 
J.  D.  Wilson  and  A.  W.  Pollard,  R.J.  (1919,  Aug.  14,  T.L.S.);  R.  Fischer, 
Quellen  zu  R.J.  (1922);  J.M.Robertson,  R.J.  (1925,  Si.  Canon,  Si.  113); 
M.  P.  Tilley,  4  Parody  ofEuphues  in  R.J.  (i<)i6,M.LJf.di.  i);  G.  Hjort, 
TAeGoodandBadQqofR.J.andL.L.L.(i<)i,6,M.L.R.Tai.  140);  B.A.P. 
van  Dam,  Did  Sh.  Revise  R.J.?  (1927,  Anglia,  li.  39).] 

Qi  is  one  of  the  bad  Quartos  (cf.  p.  156),  but  it  preserves 
many  readings  better  than  those  of  £2,  which,  although 
'Newly  corrected,  augmented,  and  amended',  contains 
many  errors.  The  fairly  full  stage-directions  of  Q2,  with 
notes  for  the  use  of  properties,  suggest  an  author's  hand 
supplemented  in  the  theatre,  of  which  there  is  a  clear  sign  in 
the  substitution  (iv.  5. 102)  of  'Enter  Will  Kemp'  for  'Enter 
Peter'.  Several  entries  and  exits  areunmarked.  £3  is  printed 
from  Q2,  and  F  and  the  undated  Q  independently  from 
Q3.  Each  introduces  some  corrections,  apparently  from 
conjecture.  As  originally  set  up,  Romeo  and  Juliet  ended  on 
p.  77  of  the  Tragedies,  and  Troilus  and  Cressida  began  over- 
leaf on  p.  7  8 .  When  Troilus  and  Cressida  (q.v.)  was  for  a  time 
withdrawn,  the  end  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  was  reprinted  as 
p.  79  and  Timon  of  Athens  begun  on  p.  80  overleaf.  The  can- 
celled leaf  with  pp.  77-8  is  accidentally  preserved  in  two 
examples.  ^  The  relation  of  Qi  to  Qs  has  been  the  subject 
of  much  discussion.  Qi  is  certainly  a  'reported'  text,  and 
its  derivation  from  an  original  more  closely  resembling 
Q2  is  apparent.  Lines  necessary  to  explain  the  sense  of 
what  is  left  are  omitted  (i.  i.  1 15-22;  i.  2.  1-3 ;  iii.  2. 45- 
51 ;  102-6).  Points  are  lost  through  alterations  of  order 
(i.  i .  1 9-37 ;  5 1-8 ;  i.  2.  38-45).  Passages  are  represented 
by  mere  paraphrases,  or  by  scattered  lines,  with  or  without 
connective  padding.  The  reporter  tends  to  break  down  in 
bustling  scenes,  with  much  action  and  confused  speech. 
The  fight  in  i.  i.  69-87  is  only  indicated  by  a  stage-direc- 
tion, and  the  stage-directions  generally  vary  from  Q2  and 
often  read  like  descriptions  of  action  seen  on  the  stage. 
Except  a  short  dialogue  of  servants  in  i.  5,  1—17,  no 
episode  of  Q2  is  entirely  omitted.  There  are  many  small 
mislineations,  and  a  good  deal  of  irregular  metre*  Even 


342  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

well-reported  passages  contain  alternatives  of  syntax  or 
vocabulary  to  the  language  in  corresponding  lines  of  Q2. 
Actor's  ejaculations  are  occasionally  introduced.  There  is 
a  gag  (ii.  4.  21).  Most  evidential  of  a  reporter  are  trans- 
positions of  lines  and  phrases  from  one  place  to  another 
(i.  i.  1 20  to  iii,  i.  172;  ii.  4.  25  to  iii.  i.  104;  ii.  6.  21  to 
ii,  3.  31 ;  iii.  2.  88  to  ii.  5.  26;  iii.  4.  6-7,  33  to  i.  5.  126; 
v.  i.  64-5  to  ii.  5,  5;  v.  2.  6-8  to  v.  3. 251).  The  reporter, 
however,  is  more  competent  than  some  others,  and  suc- 
ceeds in  working  his  fragments  into  a  fairly  continuous 
text.  The  best-done  scenes  are  perhaps  i.  i.  88-end;  i.  2 ; 
i.  3.  1-48 ;i.  4;  i.  5.  18-146;  ii.  1-4;  iii.  3;  iii.  5.  1-59; 
iv.  i.  On  the  whole  the  work  deteriorates  from  ii.  6 
onwards,  and  towards  the  end  the  divergence  from  Q2  is 
considerable.  It  does  not  seem  possible  to  identify  the 
reporter.  If  he  was  an  actor,  Capulet,  the  Nurse,  Benvolio 
occasionally  suggest  themselves,  but  no  part  is  consistently 
well  rendered.  Conceivably  more  than  one  hand  has  con- 
tributed. Several  words  look  like  errors  of  mishearing,  but 
neither  these  nor  the  Equivalents'  can  be  taken  (cf.  pp.  156— 
61)  as  evidence  of  shorthand. 

A  report  does  not  account  for  everything.  Very  possibly 
the  report  is  of  a  text  shortened  for  performance.  Qi  has 
2,232  lines  and  Q2  has  3,007.  It  is  hardly  possible  to 
distinguish  the  reporter's  omissions  from  others,  but 
several  lacunae  in  long  speeches  or  dialogues  may  be 
'cuts9.  Other  features  of  the  relation  between  the  texts 
have  been  explained  on  a  theory  of  revision.  Such  a  theory 
is  stated  by  Wilson  and  Pollard.  Q2  was  printed  from  the 
author's  MS.  A  transcriber  would  not,  unless  'slavishly 
faithful*,  preserve  numerous  careless  slips,  and  notably 
a  duplication  of  ii.  3.  1-4  in  a  passage  inserted  before  the 
last  two  lines  of  ii.  2.  Moreover,  Q2  'teems  with  evidences 
of  revision*,  examples  of  which  are  in  long  passages  of 
verse  printed  as  prose,  such  as  the  Queen  Mab  speech  in 
*•  3-  54~9  *•  This  must  have  been  written  in  a  margin 
without  line  divisions,  or  so  heavily  corrected  in  a  margin 
that  the  compositor  *cut  the  Gordian  tangle  by  resorting 
to  a  prose  arrangement*.  If,  then,  Q2  was  'derived  from* 


Chap.  IX  ROMEO  AND  JULIET  343 

a  revised  MS.,  Qi  must  be  'derived  from'  this  same  MS. 
'at  an  earlier  stage  of  its  development1.  The  evidence  for 
this  is  in  the  close  typographical  resemblance  of  Qi  and 
Q2,  as  regards  spelling,  punctuation,  and  the  use  of  capi- 
tals and  italics,  in  certain  passages,  of  which  ii.  4.  39-46 
and  iii.  5.  27-31  are  examples.    Qi  contains  'pre-Shake- 
spearian'  passages  *of  the  Greene-Lodge  school*.   The 
MS.  was  twice  handled  by  Shakespeare.     At  a  first 
revision  he  brought  Acts  i  and  ii  very  nearly  to  their  final 
state,  but  only  rewrote  iii-v  here  and  there.  At  a  second 
revision  he  altered  iii-v  less  thoroughly,  omitting  to  pre- 
fix sonnets,  as  he  had  done  for  i  and  ii,  and  leaving  the 
spelling  'Capolet'  in  place  of  'Capulet'.   Qi  represents  4an 
abridged  version  of  Shakespeare's  first  revision  of  an  older 
play  eked  out  by  what  a  pirate  could  remember  of  the  later 
version'.  I  do  not  find  mis  theory  satisfactory.  The  term 
'derived  from'  is  vague.  Wilson  and  Pollard  cannot  mean 
that  the  actual  MS.  partly  revised  by  Shakespeare  was 
first  altered  by  the  reporter  as  copy  for  Qi  and  was  then 
passed  back  to  the  theatre,  further  revised  by  Shakespeare, 
and  used  as  copy  for  Q2.    They  must  mean  that  what  the 
reporter  handled  was  a  transcript;  and  this  is  consistent 
with  their  general  theory  (cf.  p.  226)  that  Shakespeare, 
early  in  his  career,  made  partial  revisions  of  several  old 
plays,  of  which  abridged  transcripts  were  prepared  for 
provincial  performance  during  the  plague  of  1 592-4.  But 
if  so,  the  typographical  resemblance  of  parts  of  Qi  and 
Q2,  upon  which  they  rightly  lay  stress,  remains  unex- 
plained. Wilson  has  himself  made  it  probable,  in  dealing 
with  other  plays,  that  Shakespeare's  orthography  was 
individual,  and  was  normalized,  with  his  punctuation,  in 
varying  degrees  by  different  printers.   How  could  two 
printers,  one  perhaps  working  from  the  original,  but  the 
other  from  a  transcript,  itself  certainly  not  literally  true 
to  the  original,  have  produced  the  typographical  resem- 
blance. This,  moreover,  is  not  confined  to  i  and  ii,  but 
extends  to  clearly  Shakespearean  writing  later,  to  which,  on 
thetheory,  Qi  had  only  access  through  the  reporter  and  not 
from  a  MS.  The  resemblance  is  certainly  striking,  and  the 


344  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

only  plausible  explanation  of  it  seems  to  be  that  some  parts 
at  least  of  Q2  were  set  up  from  corrected  pages  of  Q  i .  To 
this  also  point  cases  (ii.  2.  54;  iii.  3.  102)  of  common  mis- 
lineation  in  Qi  and  Q2.    I  find  a  similar  view  taken  by 
Greg,  Emendation,  19, 49,  and  by  Hjort  and  Van  Dam. 
If  it  is  sound,   the  alterations  from  £2  were  them- 
selves transcribed,  either  in  margins  or  on  attached  slips 
and  sheets.  I  do  not  share  the  difficulty  which  Wilson  and 
Pollard  feel  about  this.  If  the  duplication  at  the  end  of  ii. 
2  and  beginning  of  ii.  3  was  not  due  to  the  transcriber 
himself,  the  first  version  was  not  necessarily  more  than  a 
false  start  by  Shakespeare,  such  as  we  find  in  Love's 
Labour's  Losty  left  undeleted  or  inadequately  deleted.   It 
would  not  take  a  particularly  'slavish*  transcriber  to  copy- 
it  as  it  stood.    There  is  another  duplication  in  Q2  of  iii. 
3.  41.    Certainly  these  are  not  evidence  of  a  general 
revision  of  the  play.   Nor  is  the  prose  for  verse  of  the 
Queen  Mab  passage,  as  this  may  merely  represent  cor- 
rections transcribed  on  a  page  of  Qi.    Prose  for  verse  in 
Qi  one  may  generally  put  down  to  the  reporter.   The  only 
other  long'  passage  of  this  kind  in  Q2  is,  I  think,  i.  3. 
Here  Q2  follows  Qi,  and  both  texts  have  another  odd 
feature  which  has  not  been  explained.    In  the  dialogue 
between  Lady  Capulet  and  the  Nurse,  all  the  Nurse's 
speeches,  but  not  Lady  Capulet's,  are  italicized  in  Qi. 
The  italics  are  carried  on  in  Q2  and  extended  to  one  of 
two  speeches  omitted  by  Qi.  The  Nurse's  speeches  are 
also  italicized  by  Qi,  although  not  by  Q2,  in  i.  5,  but  not 
in  later  scenes.    One  would  suppose  that  the  Nurse's 
'part',  written  in  Italian  script,  was  available  for  Qi,  but 
the  relation  to  Q2,  although  too  close  to  leave  room  for 
revision,  is  not  one  of  identity,  and  Qi  also  italicizes  a 
speech  (i.  3. 100-4)  by  another  servant*   I  do  not  accept 
Robertson's  suggestion  that  the  lines  in  question  may 
have  been  left  behind  him  by  a  dead  contributor  to  the 
play,  and  printed  in  italics  as  'a  way  of  paying  a  small 
tribute  to  his  memory*.  This  is  scientific  criticism  with 
a  vengeance. 

On  the  whole,  given  the  circumstances  in  which  Qi 


Chap.  IX  ROMEO  AND  JULIET  345 

and  Q2  respectively  were  printed,  I  do  not  see  sufficient 
reason  for  supposing  either  that  Shakespeare  retained 
dialogue  from  a  pre-Shakespearean  play,  or  that  he  re- 
wrote his  own  work.  Robertson  regards  Romeo  and  Juliet 
as  'a  composite  play,  drafted  before  Shakespeare  by 
several  hands,  merely  revised  and  expanded  by  him  in 
the  version  preserved  in  Qi,  and  further  modified  by  his 
and  other  hands  in  the  version  preserved  in  Q2*.    Even 
in  Q2  he  finds  much  of  Peele,  whom  he  thinks  the  main 
'draftsman',  and  of  Marlowe,  Greene,  and  Kyd,  although 
Shakespeare  is  allowed  'far  more,  alike  of  revision  and  of 
fresh  writing,  than  he  did  in  Titus'.  I  do  not  suppose  that 
Wilson  and  Pollard  would  go  as  far  as  this,  and  I  do  not 
propose  to  take  it  seriously.  The  whole  essay  reads  like 
a  burlesque  of  Robertson's  own  theories  upon  earlier 
plays.  Certainly  there  is  some  non-Shakespearean  matter 
in  Qi,  especially  towards  the  end.    The  most  consecutive 
passages  are  ii.  6 ;  iii.  2.  57-60;  iv.  5. 43-64;  v.  3. 12-17, 
and  parts  of  v.  3.  223-67.    I  do  not  see  that  we  need 
look  for  an  author  beyond  the  reporter.    If  he  was  an 
actor,  as  is  probable  enough,  we  know  from  Henslowe's 
records  that  many  actors,  without  becoming  habitual 
playwrights  like  Shakespeare  and  Heywood,  were  able  to 
turn  out  a  play  upon  occasion;  and  the  style  of  'the 
Greene-Lodge  school'  is  just  what  such  men  mig;ht  be 
expected  to  use,  after  better  poets  had  grown  out  of  it. 

As  to  date,  1591  has  been  favoured,  usually  for  a  'first 
version1,  because  the  Nurse  (i.  3.  35)  makes  it  eleven  years 
since  an  earthquake,  and  there  was  a  real  earthquake  in 
London  in  i^So.1  This  is  pressing  the  Nurse's  interest 
in  chronology — and  Shakespeare's — rather  hard*  The 
style  of  the  play  is  that  of  the  -lyrical  group,  and  I  should 
put  it  in  1595,  preferably  before  Midsummer-Night* $ 
Dream,  as  its  theme  seems  to  be  parodied  in  that  of  Pyra- 
mus  and  Thisbe,  and  its  wall  (ii.  1, 2)  in  Snout's  wall.  This 
and  another  point  of  staging  are  discussed  in  ESz.  Stage, 
iii.  94,  98,  Weever's  mention  of  Romeo  (App.  B,  no.  xix) 
has  been  put  as  early  as  1595,  but  may  be  as  late  as  1599. 

'  EG*.  Stage,  iv.  208. 


34.6  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

A  ballad  on  the  story  was  registered  on  5  August  1596.* 
The  plague  is  recalled  (v.  2,  9).  The  'first  and  second 
cause*  (ii.  4.  25)  are  from  Segar's  Book  of  Honor  (1590). 
Rosaline  (ii.  4.  4,  14)  recalls  her  namesake  of  Love's 
Labour  *s  Lost.  There  is  a  general  resemblance  of  phrase 
and  imagery  to  much  in  the  Sonnets.  All  this  fits  well 
enough  with  1595.  The  company  was  then  the  Cham- 
berlain's, but  the  Qi  title-page  uses  the  designation 
which  it  bore  when  that  was  printed.  We  learn  from 
Marston  (App.  B,  no,  xv)  that  the  play  was  at  the  Curtain 
about  1598.  There  is  no  evidence  of  a  Jacobean  revival, 
beyond  two  alterations  of  'Zounds'  (iii.  i.  52,  104)  in  F, 
which  retains  the  rest  of  the  profanity. 

The  theme  of  escape  from  marriage  through  a  sleeping- 
draught  is  as  old  as  the  Ephesiaca  of  Xenophon  of  Ephesus 
(4th  cent.  A.D.?).  It  came  to  Shakespeare  through  an 
Italian  channel.  Masuccio  of  Salerno  told  the  story,  much 
in  its  later  form,  of  Sienese  lovers  in  his  IlNovellino  (1476). 
Luigi  da  Porto's  Istoria  di  due  Nobili  Amanti  (c.  1524) 
transferred  it  to  Romeo  and  Giulietta  at  Verona,  and  con- 
nected it  with  the  noble  families  of  Dante,  Purgatorio,  vi. 
1 06,  'Vieni  a  veder  Montecchi  e  Cappelletti',  although 
the  Cappelletti  seem  to  have  been  really  of  Cremona. 
From  Da  Porto  it  passed  to  the  Infelice  Amore  (1553)  of 
G.  Bolderi,  the  Novelle  (1554)  of  Matteo  Bandello,  and 
the  Hadriana  (1578)  of  Luigi  Groto.  It  was  treated  as 
serious  Veronese  history  by  Girolamo  de  la  Corte(i  594—6), 
who  followed  Bandello  in  placing  it  during  the  rule 
(c.  1303)  of  Bartolomeo  della  Scala.  There  were  various 
offshoots,  including  the  Castehines  y  Monteses  of  the 
Spanish  Lope  de  Vega.  Pierre  Boaistuau  translated  Ban- 
dello in  the  Histoires  Tragiques  (1559),  and  was  in  turn 
translated  in  William  Painter's  Palace  of  Pleasure  (1565- 
7),  and  more  freely  handled  in  Arthur  Brooke's  poem 
The  Tragical/  History*  o/Romeus  and  Juliet  (i  562).  Of  this 
Bernard  Garter's  Two  English  Lovers  (i  563)  is  an  imitation, 
with  other  names.  A  Romeo  et  Juliette  by  C6me  de  la 
Gambe,  dit  Chasteauvieux,  was  being  played  in  France 

1  Arber,  iii.  68. 


Chap.  IX  ROMEO  AND  JULIET  347 

about  1581,  birt  is  not  preserved.1  Shakespeare  had 
probably  read  Painter,  and  not  very  successful  attempts 
have  been  made  to  show  that  he  used  Luigi  Groto  and 
Lope  de  Vega.  But  substantially  his  source,  so  far  as  we 
know,  was  Brooke.  Brooke,  however,  says,  *I  saw  the 
same  argument  lately  set  foorth  on  stage  with  more  com- 
mendation, then  I  can  looke  for:  (being  there  much  better 
set  forth  then  I  haue  or  can  dooe)'.  He  does  not  tell  us 
whether  this  play  was  Latin  or  English,  popular  or 
academic,  and  we  cannot  say  whether  it  accounts  for  any 
of  Shakespeare's  divergences  from  Romeus  and  Juliet.  A 
fragmentary  Romeus  et  Julietta  in  Shane  MS.  1775  dates 
from  about  1615.*  But  Brooke's  statement  has  naturally 
encouraged  those  who  believe  that  Shakespeare  rewrote 
an  earlier  play.  Fuller  has  attempted  to  trace  one  behind 
the  Dutch  Romeo  en  Juliette  of  J.  Struijs  (1634),  but  does 
not  convince  me  that  this  had  any  source  other  than 
Boaistuau,  who  was  translated  into  Dutch  by  1618. 
A  Romeo  and  Juliet  was  played  at  N5rdlingen  in  1 604  and 
at  Dresden  in  1626  and  1646.3  Robertson  unjustifiably 
assigns  to  1626  the  MS.  of  the  extant  German  Romio  und 
Julietta^  which  according  to  Creizenach,  Schauspiele  der 
Englischen  Komddianten,  xli,  is  shown  by  dialect  and  local 
allusions  to  have  been  written  in  Austria  during  the  second 
half  of  the  seventeenth  century.  It  is  based  upon  Shake- 
speare in  the  £2  form,  since  it  uses  passages  (iii.  1. 157- 
80 ;  v.  3. 1 2-1 7)  as  there  given  and  not  in  Qi .  But  it  has 
a  preliminary  scene  in  which  the  Prince  reconciles  Monta- 
gue and  Capulet,  and  this,  according  to  Robertson,  must 
go  back  to  England  in  1562  when  'the  dangers  of  civil 
strife  are  seriously  dwelt  upon',  and  'is  inexplicable  as 
a  German  recast*.  I  cannot  imagine  why.  The  dangers  of 
civil  strife  have  been  obvious  to  all  peoples  in  al!  ages. 
There  were  German  renderings  of  Boaistuau  from  1615 
onwards. 

1  E.  Lanson  in  Revue  tTHut.  Lift.        *  EBx.  Stage,  ir.  378. 
x.  199;  G.  H.  White  in  N.Q.  cliv.  95.  3  Ibid.  it.  283;  Hen  86. 


348  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap,  IX 

XL    RICHARD  THE  SECOND 

[S.R.  1597.]  29°  Augusti.  Andrew  Wise.  Entredforhis 
Copie  by  appointment  from  master  Warden  Man,  The 
Tragedye  of  Richard  the  Second  vjd  (Arber,  iii.  89). 

[Qi.  1597.]  The  Tragedie  of  King  Richard  the  second. 
As  it  hath  beene  publikely  acted  by  the  right  Honourable 
the  Lorde  Chamberlaine  his  Seruants.  [Simmes's  device 
(McKerrow  142)]  London  Printed  by  Valentine  Simmes 
for  Androw  Wise,  and  are  to  be  sold  at  his  shop  in  Paules 
church  yard  at  the  signe  of  the  Angel.  1597.  [No  head- 
title.  Running-title]  The  Tragedie  of  King  Richard  the 
second. 

Facsimiles.  C.Praetorius(i888,5A.  Q.xviii,  from  Huth,  now  B.M., 
copy,  ed.  W.  A.  Harrison).  W.  Griggs  (1890,  Sh.  Q.  xvii,  from 
Devonshire,  now  Huntington,  copy,  ed.  P.  A.  Daniel). 

[Qa.  1598.]  The  Tragedie  of  King  Richard  the  second.  As 
it  hath  beene  publikely  acted  by  the  Right  Honourable  the 
Lord  Chamberlaine  his  seruants.  By  William  Shake-speare. 
[Simmes's  device  (McKerrow  142)]  London  Printed 
by  Valentine  Simmes  for  Andrew  Wise,  and  are  to  be 
sold  at  his  shop  in  Paules  churchyard  at  the  signe  of  the 
Angel.  1598.  [No  head-title.  Running-title]  The  Tragedie 
of  King  Richard  the  Second. 

[Q3  • r  598  •]  The  Tragedie  of  King  Richard  the  second.  As 
it  hath  beene  publikely  acted  by  the  Right  Honourable  the 
Lord  Chamberlaine  his  seruants.  By  William  Shake-speare. 
[Simmes's  device  (McKerrow   142)]   London   Printed 
by  Valentine  Simmes,  for  Andrew  Wise,  and  are  to  be 
solde  at  his  shop  in  Paules  churchyard,  at  the  signe  of  the 
AngeL  1598.  [No  head-title.  Running-title]  The  Trzgedie 
of  King  Richard  the  Second. 
[W.  A.  White  collection.] 
Facsimile.  A.  W.  Pollard  (1916). 

[S«R.  1603.]  25  Junij.  Mathew  Lawe.  Entred  for  his 
copies  in  full  courte  Holden  this  Day.  These  ffyve  copies 
folowinge  ...  viz  iij  enterludes  or  playes  . . .  The  second 
of  Richard  the  .2. . . .  all  kinges  ...  all  whiche  by  consent 


Chap.  IX  RICHARD  THE  SECOND  349 

of  the  Company  are  sett  over  to  him  from  Andrew  Wyse 
(Arber,  iii.  239). 

[Q4. 1 608.]  The  Tragedie  of  King  Richard  the  second.  As 
it  hath  been  publikely  acted  by  the  Right  Honourable  the 
LordChamberlainehisseruantes.  By  William  Shake-speare. 
[White's  device  (McKerrow  i88b)]  London,  Printed 
by  W(illiam)  W<hite)  for  Matthew  Law,  and  are  to  be 
sold  at  his  shop  in  Paules  Church-yard,  at  the  signe  of  the 
Foxe.  1608.  [No  head-title.  Running-title']  The  Tragedie 
of  Richard  [or  King  Richard]  the  Second. 

[Cancel  t.p.  in  some  copies.']  The  Tragedie  of  King  Richard 
the  Second:  With  new  additions  of  the  Parliament  Sceane, 
and  the  deposing  of  King  Richard,  As  it  hath  been  lately 
acted  by  the  Kinges  Majesties  seruantes,  at  the  Globe. 
By  William  Shake-speare.  [White's  device  (McKerrow 
i88b)]  At  London,  Printed  by  W.  W.  for  Mathew  Law, 
and  are  to  be  sold  at  his  shop  in  Paules  Church-yard,  at 
the  signe  of  the  Foxe.  1 608. 
Facsimile.  C.  Praetorius  (1888,  Sh.  Q.  xix,  ed.  W.  A.  Harrison). 

[Qj.  1615.]  The  Tragedie  of  King  Richard  the  Second: 
With  new  additions  of  the  Parliament  Sceane,  and  the 
deposing  of  King  Richard.  As  it  hath  been  lately  acted 
by  the  Kinges  Maiesties  seruants,  at  the  Globe.  By 
William  Shake-speare  [Ornament]  At  London,  Printed 
for  Mathew  Law,  and  are  to  be  sold  at  his  shop  in  Paules 
Church-yard,  at  the  signe  of  the  Foxe*  1615.  [No 
head-title.  Running-title']  The  Tragedie  of  Richard  the 
Second. 

[Fi.  1623.]  {Catalogue]  The  Life  &  death  of  Richard  the 
second.  [#/j/0H>j,pp.23--45,sign.b6-d5.  Head-title^Tte 
life  and  death  of  King  Richard  the  Second.  [Running-title*] 
The  life  (Life)  and  death  (Death)  of  Richard  the  second, 
[Acts  and  sec.  marked.] 

[Q6.  1634.]  By  lohn  Norton. 

Facsimile.  C.  Praetorius  (1887,  Sh.  Q.  xx,  ed.  P.  A.  Daniel). 

Parallel-Text.  A.  Waites  (i 892,  Banksidey  Qi  +F i). 

Modtrn  Editions.  E.  K.  Chambers  (1891,  Falcon)-,  C,  HL  Herford 


3so  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

(1893,  Warwick}-,  I.  B.  John  (1912,  1925,  Arden}\  LL  M.  Buell 
(1921,  Tale). 

Dissertations.  A.  Schmidt,  Q$  and  F  von  R.  //  (1880,  J.  xv.  301); 
H.  R.  Plomer,  An  Examination  of  Some  Existing  Copies  ofHayward's  King 
Henrie  7^(1902, 2  Library,  iii.  13);  F.  W.  Moorman,  SA.'s  History  Plays 
and  Daniel's  Civile  Wars  (1904,  J.  xl.  69);  J.  M.  Robertson,  The  Author- 
ship ofR.  II  (1923,  Sh.  Canon9  ii.  45);  E.  M.  Albright,  Sh.'s  R.  II  and  the 
Essex  Conspiracy  (1927,  PMJL-A.  xlii.  686) ;  E.  P.  Kuhl,  SA.  andHayward 
(1928,  S.P.  xxv.  312). 

The  interrelation  of  the  texts  is  minutely  examined  in 
Pollard's  admirable  introduction  to  £3.  Qi  is  a  good  text, 
and  may  very  possibly  have  been  printed  from  the  author's 
manuscripts.  Modern  editors  find  on  an  average  one  error 
of  wording  to  a  page.  Seventeen  corrections  were  made 
during  printing,  and  the  extant  examples  contain  corrected 
and  uncorrected  sheets  in  various  combinations.  The 
punctuation  is  generally  careless  and  inadequate,  but  be- 
comes more  elaborate  in  set  speeches;  and  here  Pollard 
(cf.  p.  191)  is  inclined  to  trace  the  author's  hand.  A  few 
mislmeations  are  generally  due  to  the  merging  of  short 
with  full  lines.  I  think  there  may  be  some  textual  dis- 
turbance in  York's  speech  of  ii.  2.  98-122,  which  reads 
very  unmetrically.  A  variant  spelling  of  'Martiall*  for 
'Marshall'  in  three  out  of  four  cases  in  i.  3  may  have  no 
significance.  The  stage-directions  are  of  the  short  type, 
which  now  becomes  normal  in  Shakespeare's  plays.  The 
later  Qq  were  successively  set  up  from  each  other,  with 
some  correction  of  errors,  and  a  progressive  accumulation 
of  new  ones,  to  which  Q2  is  the  chief  contributor.  The 
'abdication*  or  'deposition*  scene  (iv.  i.  154-318)  first 
appears  in  £4;  it  is  in  all  extant  examples,  but  all  have  not 
the  cancel  title-page  calling  attention  to  it.  Some  omis- 
sions and  much  xnislineation,  partly  due  to  these,  suggest 
that  the  copy  was  derived  from  a  shorthand  report.  F  is 
shown  by  the  retention  of  some  Q  errors  to  have  been  set 
up  from  a  Q,  This  was  probably  £5,  but  just  possibly 
£3.  Many  fresh  errors  are  introduced,  and  there  are 
some  colourless  verbal  variants,  which  are  probably  best 
ascribed  (cf.  p.  1 80)  to  the  subconscious  operations  of  the 
compositor's  mind.  But  many  Qi  readings  are  also  re- 


Chap.  IX  RICHARD  THE  SECOND  351 

stored,  and  there  are  a  few  corrections,  including  two  on 
points  of  historical  fact,  which  are  perhaps  beyond  the 
normal  capacity  of  a  press  corrector.  Moreover,  the 
stage-directions  are  elaborated;  there  is  a  general  substitu- 
tion of  'Heaven'  for  'God';  the  'abdication'  scene  is  pro- 
perly lined;  and  the  omission  of  passages  amounting  to 
about  50  lines  in  all  (i.  3. 129-33,  239-42>  268-93 ;  &•  2- 
29-32 ;  iv.  i.  52-9)  may  be  due  to  a  desire  for  shortening 
or  the  removal  of  obscurities.  Pollard  thinks  that  the 
example  of  Q$  used  had  been  imperfectly  collated  with 
one  of  Qi  altered  to  serve  as  prompt-copy.1 

Some  evidence  for  a  date  of  production  in  1595  is  fur- 
nished by  Samuel  Daniel's  CMl  Wars  between  Lancaster 
and  York.  This  was  registered  on  1 1  October  1 594.  Two 
editions  appeared  in  1595,  and  the  second  of  these  con- 
tains parallels  to  Richard  //,  which  are  not  in  the  first. 
Obviously  both  might  have  preceded  the  play,  but  on  the 
whole  it  seems  more  likely,  especially  on  the  analogy  of 
Daniel's  handling  of  his  Cleopatra  (cf.  Antony  andClevpatra)) 
that  he  made  these  alterations  after  seeing  it.  And  there  is 
some  confirmation  of  a  1595  date  in  a  letter  (App.  D) 
from  Sir  Edward  Hoby,  apparently  inviting  Sir  Robert 
Cecil  to  a  performance  of  Richard  II  on  December  9  of  that 
year.  This  again  is  not  quite  conclusive,  as  one  cannot  be 
certain  that  the  play  was  new.  And  although  the  style  and 
lyrical  tone  of  the  scenes  in  which  Richard  figures  would  fit 
well  enough  with  1595,  there  is  much  poor  and  bombastic 
matter,  especially  in  Acts  i  and  v,  which  recalls  the  period 
of  2,  3  Henry  VI  and  Richard  III.  Certainly  Shakespeare 
is  still  under  the  influence  of  Marlowe  in  his  handling  of 
chronicle-history.  Robertson,  indeed,  boldly  claims  the 
whole  play  as  one  by  Marlowe  or  by  Marlowe  and  Peele, 
'substantially  preserved'  in  an  adaptation  by  Shakespeare. 
I  do  not  think  that  such  parallels  of  vocabulary  and  diction 
as  he  produces  are  in  the  least  capable  of  proving  this;  or 
that  there  is  any  clear  evidence  of  Marlowe's  hand,  as  dis- 
tinct from  his  influence;  or  that  it  is  plausible  to  argue  that 
Marlowe  is  likely  to  have  made  a  use  of  continuous 

1  C£,  however,  p.  165. 


35*  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

rhymed  dialogue,  which  is  markedly  absent  from  his 
known  plays.  Nor  do  I  think  that  Peele  writing  poor 
matter  under  Marlowe's  influence  can  be  discriminated 
with  any  assurance  on  purely  internal  grounds  from  Shake- 
speare writing  poor  matter  under  the  same  influence.  The 
conception  of  Richard's  tragedy,  as  well  as  its  detailed 
presentation,  seems  to  me  clearly  Shakespearean  and  not 
Marlowean;  and  it  is  safest  to  assume  that  in  the  inferior 
scenes  Shakespeare,  completely  uninterested  in  chronicle- 
history  as  such,  allowed  himself  to  slip  into  a  perfunctory 
and  traditional  treatment  of  all  that  was  not  directly  con- 
cerned with  that  tragedy.  It  is  quite  possible  that  he  had 
an  older  source-play  before  him,  and  conceivably  he  may 
have  preserved  rather  more  of  a  predecessor's  phrasing 
than  he  did  in  the  almost  contemporary  King  John.  If  so, 
it  probably  dealt,  perhaps  in  a  first  part,  with  the  murder 
of  Thomas,  Duke  of  Gloucester,  a  knowledge  of  which 
seems  assumed  in  the  play  as  it  stands.  Certainly  there 
were  other  Elizabethan  plays  on  the  reign,  besides  Shake- 
speare's. There  was  the  old  Life  and  Death  of  Jack  Straw, 
printed  in  1593,  but  this  does  not  cover  the  murder.1 
There  was  the  play,  sometimes  called  Thomas  of  Woodstock^ 
preserved  in  Egerton  MS.  1 994.2  This,  although  the  manu- 
script has  probably  been  used  for  a  seventeenth-century 
revival,  seems  to  be  of  sixteenth-century  composition.  It 
might  conceivably  be  a  first  part  of  Shakespeare's  source, 
if  he  had  one.  There  are  some  slight  verbal  resemblances 
to  Richard  //,  and  the  subject  is  die  death  of  Gloucester, 
although  this  is  not  treated  exactly  as  we  should  expect 
from  the  references  in  Richard  //,  since  Mowbray  is  not 
among  the  characters.  Neither  Jack  Straw  nor  Thomas  of 
Woodstock  can  be  definitely  assigned  to  any  company  with 
which  Shakespeare  was  concerned.  But  we  do  know  from 
Simon  Forman  (App.  D)  that  in  161 1  the  King's  men  had 
a  Richard  II  other  than  Shakespeare's,  the  description  of 
which  does  not  answer  to  either  of  them,  but  which 
covered  Straw's  riot,  the  death  of  Gloucester,  on  lines 
inconsistent  with  Richard  //,  and  a  plot  of  John  of  Gaunt 

*a.  »  IKd.  iv.  4*5  cf.  p.  in. 


Chap.  IX  RICHARD  THE  SECOND  353 

to  make  his  son  king.  Whether  it  also  covered  the  actual 
deposition  of  Richard  is  not  clear.  Perhaps  it  is  even  more 
likely  than  Thomas  of  Woodstock  to  represent  the  first  part 
of  a  source-play  used  by  Shakespeare. 

There  are  many  indications  of  an  analogy  present  to 
the  Elizabethan  political  imagination  between  the  reign 
of  Richard  II  and  that  of  Elizabeth  herself.  A  letter  of  Sir 
Francis  Knollys  on  9  January  1578  excuses  himself  forgiv- 
ing unwelcome  counsel  to  the  queen.1  He  will  not  *play  the 
partes  of  King  Richard  the  Second's  men';  will  not  be  a 
courtly  and  unstatesmanlike  flatterer.  Clearly  the  phrase 
was  familiar.  Henry  Lord  Hunsdon  similarly  wrote  at 
some  date  before  1588,  'I  never  was  one  of  Richard  IFs 
men'.z  More  cryptic  is  a  letter  from  Raleigh  to  Robert 
Cecil  on  6  July  1597,  'I  acquainted  my  L:  generall 
(Essex)  with  your  letter  to  mee  &  your  kynd  acceptance 
of  your  enterteynemente,  hee  was  also  wonderfull  merry 
att  yc  consait  of  Richard  the  2.  I  hope  it  shall  never  alter, 
&  whereof  I  shalbe  most  gladd  of  as  the  trew  way  to  all 
our  good,  quiett  &  advancement,  and  most  of  all  for  her 
sake  whose  affaires  shall  therby  fynd  better  progression/3 
All  these  allusions  are  of  course  in  perfect  loyalty,  the 
utterances  of  devoted,  if  critical,  officials.  In  1 597  Cecil, 
Raleigh,  and  Essex  were  for  once  on  friendly  terms.  The 
publication  of  Richard  //,  without  the  abdication  scene, 
came  shortly  after  Cecil  wrote.  In  1598  a  disgruntled 
Essex  drifted  into  an  attitude  of  political  opposition,  and 
the  government  became,  or  professed  to  become,  aware  of 
an  unfriendly  parallel  drawn  between  Elizabeth  herself 
and  the  deposed  Richard.-*  John  Hayward's  prose  history 
of  The  First  Part  of  the  Life  andRaigne  of  King  Henrietta 
was  registered  on  9  January  1599  and  published  with  a 
dedicatory  epistle  to  Essex,  which  contained  a  dangerous 
description  of  him  as  'magnus  et  presenti  iudicio  et  futuri 
temporis  expectatione'.  Apparently  Essex  took  alarm  and, 
after'  keeping  the  book  by  him  for  a  fortnight,  moved  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury  to  require  the  cancellation  of  the 

1  Wright,  i£.  74.    *  Strickland  $53,     nenbaum,  Problem,  209, 
*  Edwards,  ii,  1695  facs.  at  Tan-         4  Cf,  vol.  ii,  p.  323. 

3142.1  A  a 


354  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

epistle.  A  second  edition  of  the  book  was  suppressed 
altogether.  At  the  trial  of  Essex  on  5  June  1 600  for  his 
proceedings  in  Ireland,  his  relation  to  the  book,  which  the 
queen  had  come  to  regard  as  seditious,  was  made  one  of 
the  charges  against  him.  In  July  Hayward  and  Samuel 
Harsnett,  who  had  given  the  licence  for  publication,  were 
called  before  the  Star  Chamber;  and  Hayward  was  im- 
prisoned. An  official  note  of  evidence  against  Essex  com- 
piled at  this  time  lays  stress  not  only  on  the  offending 
epistle  to  the  book,  but  also  on  'the  Erie  himself  being 
so  often  present  at  the  playing  thereof,  and  with  great 
applause  giving  countenance  and  lyking  to  the  same',  A 
few  months  later,  on  8  February  1 60 1 ,  Essex  attempted  re- 
bellion. On  the  day  before  some  of  his  supporters  had  gone 
to  the  Globe,  where  they  had  persuaded  Augustine  Phillips 
to  revive  an  old  play  of  Richard  II.  Evidence  of  this  was 
given  at  their  arraignment  for  participation,  in  Essex's 
treason,  and  was  used  with  Hayward's  book  to  suggest 
that  the  earl,  who  had  some  remote  claim  to  the  crown 
through  a  descent  from  Thomas  of  Woodstock,  had 
planned  to  play  the  part  of  Henry  Bolingbroke  to  Eliza- 
beth's Richard.  On  all  this  several  interesting  points  arise. 
In  the  first  place,  there  can  surely  be  little  doubt  that  the 
play  of  7  February  was  Shakespeare's.  It  was  given  by 
the  Chamberlain's  men.  A  play  produced  in  1595  and 
laid  aside  might  well  be  'stale',  from  the  theatrical  point 
of  view,  by  1 601 .  It  dealt  with  the  deposing  and  killing  of 
the  king,  and  although  we  know  from  Forman  that  the 
company  had  another  play  of  Richard  II  in  1 6 1 1,  it  is  on 
the  whole  improbable  that  its  subject-matter  overlapped 
with  Shakespeare's.  That  some  of  the  references  speak 
of  a  play  of  *Henry  IV  is  immaterial.  The  frequent 
performances  which  Essex  was  accused  in  1 600  of  having 
attended  must  of  course  have  been  earlier  than  that  of 
1 60 1,  at  which  indeed  he  was  not  present.  They  are  no 
doubt  those  which  the  Queen  spoke  of  to  Lambarde  in 
1 60 1  as  given  '40*^  times  in  open  streets  and  houses*.  And 
they  may  reasonably  be  placed  about  1595,  in  view  of 
a  statement  in  some  Directions  for  Preachers  of  1601  that 


Chap.  IX  RICHARD  THE  SECOND  355 

Essex  had^  been  plotting  treason  for  six  or  seven  years.1 
The  deposition  scene  was  evidently  given  at  the  1601  per- 
formance. I  think  it  was  probably  given  in  1595  also. 
That  it  was  part  of  the  original  writing  is  quite  clear.  The 
lines  immediately  preceding  it  have  been  altered  in  Qi  to 
square  with  the  excision,  but  this  has  left  without  point  the 
Abbot's  subsequent  comment  'A  woeful  Pageant  haue  we 
here  beheld*.  Pollard,  however,  thinks  that  it  may  have 
been  cut  in  representation,  partly  because  the  Chamber- 
lain's men  thought  that  there  was  'too  much  Richard'  in 
the  play,  and  partly  because  of  the  Pope's  bull  of  deposition 
in  1596.  There  was  (cf.  p.  366)  no  such  bull,  and 
it  seems  to  me  more  likely  that  the  interest  taken  by  Essex 
in  the  play  led  to  some  popular  application  of  the  theme 
to  current  politics,  and  this  in  turn  to  the  intervention  of 
the  censor,  perhaps  at  the  theatre,  but  more  probably  when 
the  play  came  to  be  printed.  That  it  was  written  with  any 
Seditious  intent  is  of  course  most  unlikely,  and  indeed  only 
an  unreasonably  sensitive  instinct  of  suspicion  could  re- 
gard the  deposition  scene  in  particular  as  encouraging 
resentment  against  Richard.  The  Hunsdons,  whom  the 
company  served,  were  always  loyal  supporters  of  Eliza- 
beth, and  in  no  way  entangled  with  the  fortunes  of  Essex, 
even  if  Essex  himself  can  be  supposed  to  have  had  any 
notion  of  aping  Henry  of  Bolingbroke  as  early  as  1595. 
Nor  is  Sir  Edward  Hoby  likely  to  have  invited  Cecil,  of  all 
men,  to  witness  a  disloyal  play.  And  Shakespeare's  own 
supposed  attachment  to  Essex  is  a  merely  speculative 
theory.  Even  in  1601,  little  blame  seems  to  have  fallen 
upon  the  Chamberlain's  men.  A  passage  in  Hamlet  (q.v.) 
may  imply  that  they  travelled  for  a  time.  But  they  were 
at  court  a  few  days  after  the  trial  of  Essex  and  several 
times  in  the  following  winter.  Under  James,  who  had 
an  affectionate  remembrance  of  Essex,  the  deposition 
scene  could  safely  be  printed.  The  1608  title-page  and 
the  attention  paid  to  the  Act  of  Abuses  in  the  F  text  indicate 
a  Jacobean  revival.  Probably  Shakespeare's  was  the 
Richard  II  given  at  sea  (App.  D)  by  Keeling's  sailors  in 

1  Cheyney,  ii.  535. 


3j6  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

1607.  They  are  not  likely  to  have  used  anything  but 
a  printed  play.  There  was  a  revival  at  the  Globe  in  1631 
(App.  D).  ^ 

The  mam  source  of  Richard  II  was  the  Chronicle  of 
Holinshed,  in  the  second  edition  of  1587,  since  ii.  4.  8 
uses  a  passage  not  in  that  of  1577.  For  a  few  historical 
points  other  chroniclers  may  have  been  drawn  upon.  Two 
features  not  in  Holinshed,  the  introduction  of  Queen 
Isabel,  and  the  attribution  of  a  soliloquy  to  Richard  just 
before  his  murder,  are  common  to  Richard  II and  the  first 
edition  of  Daniel's  poem,  but  the  treatment,  both  of  these 
topics  and  of  the  rest  of  the  action,  is  so  different  as  to 
make  an  influence  either  way  unlikely.  Miss  Albright's 
suggestion  that  Shakespeare  may  have  used  Hayward's 
history  in  manuscript  is  perverse,  in  view  of  the  relative 
dates  of  the  prints.  She  rests  it  on  a  statement  by  Hayward 
that  he  had  contemplated  handling  the  subject  a  dozen 
years  back,  and  neglects  his  further  statements  that  he  had 
told  no  one  of  this,  and  only  began  to  write  the  book  a  year 
before  it  was  published.  There  are  parallels,  but  they  may 
best  be  explained  through  use  by  the  historian  of  the  play. 

XII.  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM 

[S.R.  1600.]  8  Octobris.  Thomas  Fyssher.  Entred  for 
his  copie  vnder  the  handes  of  master  Rodes  and  the 
Wardens.  A  booke  called  A  mydsommer  nightes  Dreame 
vjd.  (Arber,  iii.  174). 

[Qi.  1600.]  [Ornament]  A  Midsommer  nights  dreame. 
As  it  hath  beene  sundry  times  publickely  acted,  by  the  Right 
honourable,  the  Lord  Chamberlaine  his  seruants.  Written 
by  William  Shakespeare.  [Fisher's  device  (McKerrow 
32 1)]  1T  Imprinted  at  London,  for  Thomas  Fisher,  and  are 
to  be  soulde  at  his  shoppe,  at  the  Signe  of  the  White  Hart, 
in  Fleetestreete.  1600.  [Head-title']  A  Midsommer  Nights 
Dreame.  [Running-title]  A  Midsommer  nightes  dreame. 
[The  printer  may  be  Allde  or  Bradock.  An  elaborate  ornament  at 
the  end  recurs  qn  the  t.p.  of  Edward  II  (i  594),  and  that  is  linked  by 
its  final  ornament  to  Edward  II  (i  598),  which  Bradock  printed.] 
Facsimile.  W.  Griggs  (1880,  Sh,  Q.  Hi,  ed  J.  W.  Ebsworth). 


Chap.  IX  A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS  DREAM          357 

[£2.1619.]  [Ornament.]  A  Midsommer  nights  dreame. 
As  it  hath  beene  sundry  times  publikely  acted,  by  the 
Right  Honourable,  the  Lord  Chamberlaine  his  seruants 
Written  by  William  Shakespeare.  [W.  Jaggard's  device 
formerly  Roberts's  (McKerrow  136)]    Printed  by  lames 
Roberts,    1600,     [Head-title]    A    Midsommer   Nights 
Dreame.  [Running-title']  A  Midsommer  nights  Dreame. 
[On  the  misdating  cf.  p.  133.] 

Facsimile.  W.  Griggs  (1880,  Sh.  Q.  iv,  ed.  J.  W.  Ebsworth). 
[Fi.   1623.]    [Catalogue]  Midsommer  Nights  Dreame. 
[Comedies,  pp.  145-62,  sign.  N-O  3V.  Head-title]  A  Mid- 
sommer Nights  Dreame.   [Running-title]  A  Midsommer 
nights  Dreame. 
[Acts  marked.] 

Parallel-Text.  W.  Reynolds  (1890,  Bank$ide>  Qi  +  Fi). 
Modern  Editions.   H.  H.  Furness  (1895,  New  Pariorum);  E.  K. 
Chambers  (i  897,  Warwick)-,  H.  Cuningham  (1905,  Arden^  W.  H. 
Durham  (1918,  Yale}->  A.  T.  Quiller-Couch  and  J.  D.  Wilson 

(1904,  a  OP.). 

Dissertations.  J.  O.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Introduction  to  MJf.D.  (1841), 
Illustrations  of  tie  Fairy  Mythology  ofMM.D.  (i  845,  Sh.  Soc.),  Memoranda 
on  MJf.D.  (1879);  N.  J.  Halpin,  Giants  Vision  in  MJf.D.  (1843,  Sh. 
Soc.);  C.  C.  Hense,  Sis  MJf.D.  Erlautert  (1851);  K.  Elze,  2am  MJT.D. 
(1868,  y.iii.  150;  Essays,  30);  H.Kuiz9ZumMJt.D.(  1869,7.17.  268); 
F.  Krauss,  Eine  Quelle  zu  Shs  MJfJ).  (1876,  J.  xi.  226);  B.  ten  Brink, 


..,....., 

0/MJV.D.  (1878);  A.  Schmidt,  Diealtesten4usgal>cndesMlf.D.  (1881); 
Dr.  Finkenbrink,  The  Date,  Plot  and  Sources  of  MJf.D.  (1884)-,  K. 
Gaedertz,  Zur  Kenntniss  der  altenglischen  Buhne  (1888);  E.  FlQgel, 
Pyramys  and  Tyste  (1889,  Anglia,  xii.  13,  631);  G.  Hart,  Die  Pyramus- 
und-TMsbe  Saga  (i  889-91)  ;  A.  Wiirzner,  Die  Orthographie  derteiden  Qq 
von  ShsMJtf.D.  (i  893)  ;  G.  Sarrazin,  DieAtfassungszeitdcsMJfJ).(i  895, 
Archiv,  xcv.  291),  Scenarie  und  Sta/age  im  MJV.D.  (1900,  Archiv,  civ. 
67);  L.  Frankel,  7or-Shakespearesches  Pyramus  und  This&e-Stuck?  (1897, 
J.  xxxiii.  275);  R.  Tobler,  Sis  MJf.D.  und  Montemayor>s  Diana  (1898, 
J.  xxxiv.  358);  W.  Vollhardt,  Die  Beziehungen  a*erMJt.D.  zum  italic- 
niscken  Schaferdrama  (i  899)  ;  F.  von  Westenholtz,  Sis  Gewonnene  Lieks- 
mUk  (1902,  Jan.  14,  Beilage  zur  Allgemeim  Zeitung);  H,  Reich,  Der  Mann 
mit  dem  Eselskopf(i^  J.  xl.  108)  ;  F.  Sidgwick,  Sources  and  Analogues  of 


, 

.  (1908,  SJt.  Classics^  S.  B.  Hemingway,  The  Relation  ofMJf.D. 
to  R.J.  (191  1,  MJLM.  xrvi.  78)  ;  E.  K,  Chambers,  The  Occasion  ofMMD. 
(1916,  St.  Homage,  154);  W.  J,  Lawrence,  St.  from  a  New  Angle  (1919, 


3J8  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

Studies,  viii.  442),  Date  cfMJf.D.  (1920,  Dec.  9,  T.L.S.),  A  Plummet 
for  Bottom's  Dream  (1922,  Fortnightly,  cxvii.  833;'  Sh.'s  Workshop,  7  5) ;  A. 
Lefranc,  Le  TMalitl  dam  MJfJ).  (1920,  Melanges  Bernard  Bouvier)\ 
E.  Rickert,  Political  Propaganda  and  Satire  /*MJV.Z>.(l923,M./>.xxi,  53, 
133);  A.  Eichler,  DasHoflwhnenm&sige  inShsMM.D.  (1925,  J.  hi.  39) ; 
H.  Spencer,  A  Nice  Derangement  (1930,  M.L.R.  xxv,  23). 

Qi  is  a  fairly  well-printed  text,  with  some  abnormal  spell- 
ings, and  may  be  from  the  author's  .manuscript.  The 
stage-directions  are  not  elaborate.  Q2  is  from  Qi,  and  Fi 
from  Q2,  but  Wilson's  analysis  points  to  the  incorporation 
of  notes  for  a  revival.  The  clearest  indication  is  the  stage- 
direction  at  v.  i.  128,  'Tawyer  with  a  Tmmpet  before 
them'.  A  division  into  Acts  has  been  superimposed  upon 
a  text  written  for  continuous  performance,  resulting  in  the 
stage-direction  at  the  end  of  iii,  'They  sleepe  all  the  Act', 
by  which  is  meant  the  act-interval. 

The  hymeneal  character  of  the  theme  has  led  to  the 
reasonable  conjecture  that  the  play  was  given  at  a  noble 
wedding,  and  various  writers  have  suggested  the  weddings 
of  (i)  Robert  Earl  of  Essex  and  Frances  Lady  Sidney  in 
April  or  May  1590,  (2)  Sir  Thomas  Heneage  and  Mary 
Countess  of  Southampton  on  2  May  1594,  (3)  William 
Earl  of  Derby  and  Elizabeth  Vere  at  Greenwich  on 
26  January  1595,  (4)  Thomas  Berkeley  and  Elizabeth 
Carey  at  Blackfriars  on  1 9  February  1 596,  (5)  Henry  Earl 
of  Southampton  and  Elizabeth  Vernon  about  February 
or  August  1598,  (6)  Henry  Lord  Herbert  and  Anne 
Russell  at  Blackfriars  on  16  June  1600.  There  is  obvious 
flattery  of  Queen  Elizabeth  as  the  'fair  vestal  throned  by 
the  west'  (ii.  i.  148—68),  and  a  possible  allusion  to  the 
bride  in  the  'little  western  flower'  on  which  Cupid's  bolt, 
harmless  against  the  'imperial  votaress',  fell.  The  imagery 
of  this  passage  has  been  regarded  as  a  reminiscence  of  the 
entertainment  of  Elizabeth  at  Kenilworth  in  1575,  and 
more  plausibly  of  that  by  the  Earl  of  Hertford  at  Elvetham 
in  1591,*  although  there  is  a  generic  quality  about  such 
pageants,  and  the  special  feature  of  *a  mermaid  on  a  dol- 
phin's back9  does  not  belong  to  either  occasion.  The 

1  Efa.  Stage,  i.  122. 


Chap.  IX         A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S  DREAM  359 

flattery  does  not  of  course  prove  that  Elizabeth  was  present 
at  the  wedding  celebrated 


at  tut  wituxuiig  *^i^L/j.en.^ij.  \s^  Midsummer-Night  s  x^/cw/^, 
although  it  is  likely  enough.  She  was  in  fact  at  weddings 
(3)  and  (6),  and  very  possibly  at  (4),  since  the  bride  was 
her  god-daughter,  and  the  grand-daughter  of  her  cousin 
and  Lord  Chamberlain.   It  may  be  assumed  that  she  was 
not  at  (i),  (2),  and  (5),  all  of  which  brought  the  bride- 
grooms into  disfavour,  while  (5)  was  in  secret,  and  not 
likely  to  have  received  the  publicity  of  a  play.  Considera- 
tions of  date  also  make  (i),  (5),  and  (6)  improbable,  and 
the  effective  choice  lies  between  (3)  and  (4).   I  have  de- 
scribed the  circumstances  of  these  in  SA.  Homage,  154,  but 
should  add  that  the  Derby  wedding  was  certainly  at 
Greenwich,  although  the  Queen  seems  to  have  accom- 
panied the  bride  to  Burghley  House  a  few  days  later,  and 
a  play  might  have  been  given  at  either  place.1    Of  the 
Berkeley  wedding,  unfortunately,  no  details  are  known. 
The  Queen  was  at  Richmond,  but  could  easily  have  come 
to  Blackfriars  by  river.    The  use  of  the  Chamberlain's 
company  would  be  natural  enough  on  this  occasion,  since 
the  bride's  grandfather  and  father  were  its  successive 
patrons;  and  Sir  George  Carey's  musical  establishment 
(cf.  vol.  ii,  p.  86)  could  perhaps  supply  any  additional 
boys  needed  to  impersonate  fairies.  Some  of  the  Chamber- 
lain's men  had  of  course  formerly  been  the  men  of  Derby's 
brother  and  predecessor,  Ferdinando,  Earl  of  Derby.  Earl 
William,  however,  had  a  company  of  his  own,  although, 
so  far  as  we  know,  only  a  provincial  one.2   A  family 
chronicler  tells  us  that  affection  between  Thomas  Berkeley 
and  Elizabeth  Carey  began  in  the  autumn  of  1595.  Wil- 
liam Stanley  and  Elizabeth  Vere  might  possibly  have  met 
at  Elvetham  in  I59i>  but  a  conceivable  reflection  of  that 
in  the  'little  western  flower'  is  too  slight  a  clue  to  lay  stress 
upon.  Either  wedding  would  fit  such  indications  of  date 
as  the  play  yields.  It  belongs  to  the  lyric  group  of  1 59476- 
I  do  not  think  that  the  proposed  show  of  Muses  mourning 
for  the  death  of  learning  in  beggary  (v.  i .  52)  is  an  allusion 
to  the  death  of  Robert  Greene  in  1592,   It  was  to  be  a 


Cf.  Eliz.  Stage,  iv.  109.  *  J«*  » 


360  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

'satire,  keen  and  critical',  which  suggests  something  on 
the  lines  of  Spenser's  Tears  of  the  Muses.  Greene,  although 
a  University  man,  could  hardly  stand  for  a  typical  repre- 
sentative of  learningin  such  a  connexion.  If  any  particular 
death  was  in  mind,  Tasso's,  on.  30  April  1 595,  seems  more 
plausible.  The  bad  weather  described  in  ii.  i.  8 1— 1 17  is 
probably  that  which  began  in  March  1594,  prevailed 
during  the  greater  part  of  that  year,  and  ushered  in  a  long 
period  of  corn  shortage  (cf.  App.  A,  no.  xii).  The  alarm 
of  the  clowns  (iii.  i.  33)  lest  that  'fearful  wild-fowl'  the 
lion  might  scare  the  ladies  recalls  the  abandonment  of  a 
projected  lion  at  the  baptismal  feast  of  the  Scottish  Prince 
Henry  on  30  August  1594,  A  True  Reportarie  of  which 
was  registered  on  24  October  1594.*  This  allusion,  as 
well  as  that  to  the  weather,  would  be  more  up  to  date  in 
January  1595  than  in  February  1596.  On  the  other  hand, 
if  Pyramus  and  Thisbe  parody  Romeo  and  Juliet  (q.v.), 
Midsummer-Nights  Dream  is  likely  to  be  the  later  play 
of  the  two.  Moreover,  there  are  allusions  (i.  2.  31,  42; 
v.  i .  47)  to  the  labours  of  Hercules,  and,  while  this  is 
nothing  in  itself,  the  last  appears  to  confuse  his  fight 
against  the  Centaurs  with  that  of  Theseus,  and  may  echo 
the  similar  confusion  in  Heywood's  Silver  Age?  which 
again  may  be  the  2  Hercules  produced  by  the  Admiral's 
on  23  May  I595-3  The  labours  of  Hercules,  however,  had 
been  dramatized  before  I592.4 

There  remains  the  question  whether  Midsummer- 
Nights  Dream  is  all  of  even  date.  In  v.  i,  1-84  correctly 
lined  passages  alternate  with  others  which  are  mislined, 
and  I  agree  with  Wilson  that  the  latter  probably  represent 
additional  matter  written  without  lineation  in  the  margin 
of  the  manuscript.  They  are  a  little  more  freely  written 
than  the  original  lines  which  they  supplement.  This  hardly 
excludes  the  possibility  that  they  were  afterthoughts  at  the 
time  of  original  composition.  Wilson,  however,  also  points 
out  that  the  fairy  mask  of  v.  i.  378-429  and  the  epilogue 
of  430-45  look  very  much  like  alternative  endifigs  to  the 

1  Arbcr,  H.  662.  s  Etix.  Stage,  iii.  344. 

*  ed.  Pearson,  iii,  141-4.  «  Ibid.  ir.  241. 


Chap.  IX         A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS  DREAM  361 

play.  On  the  whole  I  think  that  there  has  probably  been 
some  revision  in  v.  I  take  the  epilogue  as  the  later  ending, 
and  conjecture  that  children  used  for  a  mask  at  the  wed- 
ding were  not  available  on  the  public  stage;  and  that 
possibly  some  personal  allusions  to  the  bride  and  bride- 
groom were  also  replaced  by  other  matter,  in  order  to 
adapt  the  play  for  theatrical  use.  Others,  however,  carry 
the  notion  of  revision  a  great  deal  farther.  Wilson  himself 
conjectures  an  original  writing  in  1592  or  earlier  and  an 
intermediate  revision  in  1594,  both  possibly  hymeneal,  as 
well  as  a  final  revision,  which  he  believes  to  have  covered 
the  fairy  scenes  as  well  as  the  last  act,  and  to  have  been 
for  the  Southampton  wedding  of  1598.  His  case  for  the 
first  revision  rests  mainly  upon  differences  of  style  between 
the  lover  scenes  and  the  fairy  scenes,  which,  such  as  they 
are,  seem  to  me  sufficiently  explained  by  the  difference  of 
subject-matter;  and  that  for  the  revision  of  the  fairy  scenes 
themselves  upon  the  appearance  of  generic  for  personal 
names  in  the  stage-directions  and  speech-prefixes  of  certain 
passages,  which  also  I  find  unconvincing  (cf.  p.  232).  I 
have  discussed  this  reconstruction  more  fully  in  M.L.R. 
xx.  340.   Lawrence  thinks  that  the  play  was  written  in 
1 598  to  gratify  a  popular  taste  for  'nocturnals',  and  that 
Thibbus  car'  (i.  2.  37)  is  a  gird  at  Dekker's  lost  Phatthm 
of  that  year.1  This  hardly  seems  to  need  refutation.  He 
assigns  a  revision  to  the  Herbert  wedding  of  1600,  and 
takes  the  death  of  learning  to  be  the  death  of  Spenser  in 
1599.    But  we  have  an  account  of  the  Herbert  wedding, 
which  tells  of  a  mask  of  eight,  not  nine,  Muses,  but  of  no 
play.2  Miss  Rickert  supposes  that  the  play  was  planned  by 
the  Earl  of  Hertford  in  1595,  as  a  political  move,  en- 
couraged by  the  Cecils,  in  support  of  his  son's  claim  of 
succession  to  the  crown;  that  this  son  is  the  changeling 
(ii.  I.  21,  120);  that  the  rival  claim  of  James  of  Scotland 
and  his  offers  of  marriage  to  Elizabeth  were  satirized  in 
Bottom;  that  Hertford  dropped  the  scheme;  and  that  the 
play  was  adapted  for  the  public  stage  about  1598  by  a 
revision  'by  which  both  the  allegory  and  the  satire  were 


iii.  30*. 


362  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

almost  obscured'.  The  notion  is  worked  out  with  great 
ingenuity,  and  is  quite  incredible.  No  doubt  plays  in  deri- 
sion of  James  were  given  in  England;1  and  if  the  traits 
of  resemblance  noted  by  Miss  Rickert  seem  rather  far- 
fetched, much  can  be  done  by  make-up.  But  Hertford  and 
the  Cecils  could  never  have  conceived  that  a  presentation 
in  which  it  is  Titania  who  is  enamoured  of  Bottom,  rather 
than  Bottom  of  Titania,  would  make  a  satire  attractive 
to  Elizabeth.  Equally  impossible  is  the  assumed  adaptation 
of  the  discarded  skit  for  theatrical  use,  since  if  the  allegory 
and  satire  are  there  at  all,  they  are  not  so  far  'obscured' 
as  not  to  be  still  apparent,  at  any  rate  to  Miss  Rickert. 

But  I  am  breaking  a  butterfly.  It  is  an  amusing  com- 
ment that  Midsummer-Night's  Dream  was  probably  one 
of  the  first  plays  chosen  for  revival  before  James,  on 
i  January  1604.  *We  had',  writes  Dudley  Carleton  to 
John  Chamberlain,  *a  play  of  Robin  goode-fellow.'2  F 
only  expunges  a  single  profanity  (v.  i.  326),  but  it  was 
probably  a  later  revival  than  that  of  1 604  in  which  Tawyer 
(cf.  supra)  played,  and  there  is  a  curious  story  (App.  D)  of 
what  appears  to  have  been  yet  another  for  the  Sabbath 
delectation  of  Bishop  Williams  in  1631.  A  common- 
wealth droll  of  The  Merry  Conceited  Humours  of  Bottom  the 
Weaver  was  printed  in  1661  and  in  Francis  Kirkman's 
Witsy  or  Sport  upon  Sport  (1672). 

There  is  no  comprehensive  source.  Shakespeare  was 
presumably  familiar  with  fairies  and  with  Robin  Good- 
iellow  in  Warwickshire  folk-lore.  There  is  much  of  Robin 
in  R.  Scot,  Discovery  of  Witchcraft  (1584),  together  with 
a  version  of  the  story,  as  old  as  Lucian  and  Apuleius,  of 
transformation  into  an  ass.  W.  Adlington's  translation 
(1566)  of  Apuleius  was  more  than  once  reprinted.  There 
is  no  ground,  other  than  forgeries  (cf.  App.  F,  no.  xi,  »), 
for  assuming  a  sixteenth-century  version  of  Robin  Good- 
fellowy  his  Mad  Prankes  and  Merry  Jests,  registered  on 
25  April  1627,  or  of  the  ballad  of  The  Mad  Merry  Prankes 
efRoten  Goodfellow,  registered  on  23  March  1631.  The 
nature  of  a  play  of  The  King  of  Fairies,  mentioned  by 

«  £&.  Stage,  i.  323.  a  #£/.  ft.  279. 


Chap.  IX          A  MIDSUMMER-NIGHTS  DREAM  363 

Nashe  in  1 589  and  Greene  in  1592,  is  unknown.1  Oberon 
comes  ultimately  from  the  romance  of  Huon  of  Bordeaux, 
and  an  old  play  with  this  title  was  given  by  Sussex's  men 
in  1593-4  (App.  D).  Oberon  is  the  fairy  king  in  Greene's 
James  IV?  ana  Auberon  in  the  Elvetham  entertainment. 
Here  the  queen  is  Aureola,  and  in  a  Woodstock  entertain- 
ment of  1575  Eambia.3  Ovid,  Met.  iii.  173,  but  not  his 
translator  Golding,  uses  Titania  as  a  synonym  for  Diana. 
In  W.  Bettie's  Titana  and  Theseus,  registered  on  1 3  August 
1 608,  she  is  not  a  fairy,  but  a  mortal  princess.  A  hint  for 
the  love-juice  might  have  been  taken  from  Chaucer,  Mer- 
chant's Tale,  2258,  where  the  fairies  are  Pluto  and  Proser- 
pine, or  from  Montemayor,  Diana  Enamorada  (cf.  T.G.). 
Chaucer's  Knightes  Tale  or  North's  Plutarch  (1579)  would 
furnish  the  Theseus  matter,  and  the  Merchant's  Tale,  2128, 
happens  also  to  have  one  of  many  allusions  to  the  well- 
known  story  of  Pyramus  and  Thisbe.  A  book  of  Tefymus 
and  Thesbye'  was  registered  by  William  Griffith  in  1562- 
3,  but  is  unknown,4   Nor  can  statements  b)r  Warton, 
H.E.P.  iv.  297,  and  Collier,  Stationers'  Registers,  ii.  80,  that 
it  was  printed  for  Thomas  Racket,  be  verified.  T.  More, 
A  Dialogue  of  Comfort  against  Tribulation  (Tottell,  1553), 
has  an  engraved  representation  of  the  story  on  its  title- 
page,  which  can  hardly  have  been  originally  designed 
for  that  book.  It  recurs  in  J,  Brende's  History  of  Quintus 
Curcius  (Tottell,  1553),  according  to  Gaedertz  25,  who 
traces  it  to  a  German  engraving  of  1526,  which  he  ascribes 
to  Lucas  Cranach.  There  are  some  verbal  resemblances  to 
Shakespeare'streatmentinapoem  by  LThomsonin  Clement 
Robinson's  Handef ull  of  Pleasant  Delites  (i  584).  A  play  on 


thethemebyN(athaniel?)R{ichards?)  indddLMS.  15227, 
f .  5  6V,  is  of  seventeenth-century  origin.  The  repertory  of  a 
company,  possibly  of  English  actors,  at  NOrdlingen  and 
Rothenburg  in  1 604,  included  a  Pyramus  and  Thisbe*  but 
Herz  79  shows  that  the  story  was  well  known  on  the  Con- 
tinent, and  had  been  dramatized  in  Germany  by  1601. 

«  Ibid.  iv.  236, 241.  4  Arber,  i.  21 

»  JW<*.iH.330.  *MBz. Stage,* 

3  Ibid.  iii.  402;  iv.  66. 


364  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 


[1 
lan 


XIII.   KING  JOHN 

1591.]  The  Troublesome  Raigne  of  lohn  King  of  Eng- 
nd, with  the  discouerie  of  King  Richard  Cordelions  Base 
sonne  (vulgarly  named,  The  Bastard  Fawconbridge):  also 
the  death  of  King  lohn  at  Swinstead  Abbey.  As  it  was 
(sundry  times)  publikely  acted  by  the  Queenes  Maiesties 
Players,  in  the  honourable  Citie  of  London.  [Thomas 
Orwin's  device  (McKerrow  273)]  Imprinted  at  London 
for  Sampson  Clarke,  and  are  to  be  solde  at  his  shop,  on 
the  backeside  of  the  Royall  Exchange.  1591.  [Head-title, 
under  ornament  with  Stationers'  arms  and  W.  D.,  and 
Running-title']  The  troublesome  Raigne  of  King  lohn. 

[1591.]  The  Second  part  of  the  troublesome  Raigne  of 
King  lohn,  conteining  the  death  of  Arthur  Plantaginet, 
the  landing  of  Lewes,  and  the  poysning  of  King  lohn  at 
Swinstead  Abbey.  As  it  was  (sundry  times)  publikely 
acted  by  the  Queenes  Maiesties  Players,  in  the  honourable 
Citie  of  London.  [Ornament]  Imprinted  at  London  for 
Sampson  Clarke,  and  are  to  be  solde  at  his  shop,  on  the 
backeside  of  the  Royall  Exchange.  1591.  [Head-titley 
under  ornament  as  in  Part  i]  The  Second  part  of  the 
troublesome  Raigne  of  King  lohn,  containing  the  en- 
traunce  of  Lewes  the  French  Kings  sonne:  with  the 
poysoning  of  King  lohn  by  a  Monke.  [Running-title']  The 
troublesome  Raigne  of  King  lohn. 
Facsimiles.  C.  Praetorius  (1888,  Sh.  Q.  xi,  xli,  ed.  F.  J.  Furnivall)j 


Modern  Edition.  F.  J.  Furnivall  and  J.  Munro  (i  9 1 3,  Sh.  Classics). 
[1611.]  The  First  and  second  Part  of  the  troublesome 
Raigne  of  John  King  of  England.  ...  As  they  were 
(sundry  times)  lately  acted  by  the  Queenes  Maiesties 

Players.  Written  by  W.  Sh Valentine  Simmes  for 

lohn  Helme 1611. 

[Separate  head-tide  for  Part  ii,  but  continuous  signatures.] 
[1622.]  The  First  and  second  Part  of  the  troublesome 
"  -'-  ne  of  John  King  of  England.  ...  As  they  were 


Chap.  IX  KING  JOHN  365 

(sundry  times)  lately  acted.  Written  by  W.  Shakespeare. 
. . .  Aug.  Mathewes  for  Thomas  Dewe  . . .  1622. 
[Separate  tp.  for  Part  ii,  but  continuous  signatures.   Dewe  seems 
(Arber,  iv.  190)  to  have  had  some  partnership  with  John  Helme, 
who  died  in  1616.] 

[1623.]   [Catalogue]  The  Life  and  Death  of  King  John 
[Histories,  pp.  1-22;  sign.  a-b5v.    Head-  and  Running- 
titles']  The  life  and  death  of  King  John. 
[Acts  and  sec.  marked,  with  iv  repeated  for  v  (altered  in  modern 
editions).] 

Parallel-Text.  A,  Morgan  (1892,  Bankside,  xviii). 

Modern  Editions.  F.  G.  Fleay  (1878);  G.  C.  Moore  Smith  (1900, 

Warwick)\  I.  B.  John  (1907,  Ardm}\  H.  H.  Furness,  jun.  (1919, 

New  Variorum^  S.  T.  Williams  (1927,  Tale). 

Dissertations.   E.  Rose,  Sh.  as  an  Adapter  (1878,  Macmtilan's  Mag^ 

G.  H.  E.  Kopplow,  Sis  K.J.  und  seine  Quelle  (1900);  G.  C.  Moore 

Smith,  Bh's  K.J.  and  tie  T.R.  (1901,  Furnivall  Misc.  335);  A.  Kerrl, 

Die  Metritchen  Unterschiede  von  Shs  K.J.  und  J.C.  (1913);  F.  Lieber- 

mann,  Si.  als  Bearbeiter des  K.J.  (1921-2,  Arckiv,  cxlii.  177;  cxliii.  17, 

190). 

The  bibliographical  entries  up  to  1622  relate  to  the 
source-play,  The  Troublesome  Reign  of  King  John,1  but  the 
absence  of  King  John  from  the  S.R.  entry  for  Fi  suggests 
that,  like  Taming  of  the  Shrew,  it  was  regarded  as  com- 
mercially identical  with  its  predecessor.  Sampson  Clarke 
is  not  traceable  as  a  publisher  beyond  1598,  and  it  may 
be  that  thereafter  T.R.  was  a  derelict,  and  that  neither 
John  Helme  nor  Thomas  Dewe  could  claim  copyright 
against  the  F  stationers.  F  is  fairly  well  printed,  with 
normal  slight  stage-directions.  There  are  some  variations 
in  the  speech-prefixes.  'Actus  Secundus'  has  only  y^-lines, 
at  the  end  of  which  Constance  is  left  on  the  stage.  But 
the  following  iii.  I.  I  gives  her  a  fresh  entry.  Modern 
editors  attempt  to  cure  this  by  turning  *Scaena  Secunda' 
of  F's  'Actus  Primus*  into  ii  and  merging  F's  'Actus 
Secundus'  in  iii.  I.  It  is  not  satisfactory.  The  juncture  at 
iii.  i.  75  is  very  abrupt,  and  i  in  its  turn  is  reduced  to 
276  lines.  Possibly  an  original  ii.  2  has  been  cut. 

1  Efa.  Stage,  iv.  23. 


366  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

There  is  practically  no  external  evidence  to  fix  the  date 
of  the  play  before  its  mention  by  Meres  in  1598.  T.R. 
was  available  in  print  by  1591.  Basilisco  (i.  i.  244)  is  in 
Soliman  and  Perseda  (c.  1589-92).  Little  stress  can  be 
laid  on  suggestions  that  the  Lopez  plot  of  1594  (cf.  s.v. 
M.F.)  recalled  the  poisoning  of  John,  that  repeated 
references  (ii.  i.  335;  v.  i.  17;  v.  2.  48;  v.  4.  53)  to 
tempests  and  inundations  reflect  the  weather  of  the  same 
year  (cf.  s.v,  M.N.D.),  and  that  the  'choice  of  dauntless 
spirits'  in  'English  bottoms*  (ii,  i.  7  2)  made  its  appearance  at 
the  Cadiz  expedition  of  1 596 ;  perhaps  not  much  more  upon 
a  possible  echo  of  the  death  of  Hamnet  Shakespeare  (August 
1596)  in  Constance's  laments  for  Arthur.  The  Arden 
editor  speaks  of  a  papal  bull  of  1596  as  .making  regicide 
'meritorious'  (iii.  i .  1 76).  He  must  have  misread  Malone's 
reference  to  the  bull  of  1 570.  There  was  another  in  1 58 8, 
the  terms  of  which  are  unknown.  On  internal  grounds, 
however,  the  winter  of  1596-7  is  not  an  unlikely  date 
for  the  play.  It  has  a  general  stylistic  resemblance  to 
Richard  II,  and  is  sometimes  dated  before  it,  on  the  ground 
that  Shakespeare  would  not  break  the  sequence  of  the 
Lancastrian  tetralogy  with  another  historic  play.  But 
Richard  II  belongs  to  the  experiment  in  lyric  drama,  which 
the  comparative  paucity  of  rhyme  in  King  John  shows  to 
have  been  abandoned,  although  its  aftermath  in  an  ab- 
stinence from  double  endings  (cf.  p.  268)  is  shared  with 
i  Henry  IV.  There  are  some  fairly  close  phrasal  echoes 
with  Merchant  of  Venice.  Kerrl  regards  i  as  written  some 
time  before  the  rest,  and  iii,  2,  3  and  iv.  i  as  revised  con- 
siderably later;  but  this  is  on  the  basis  (cf.  p.  266)  of 
verse-tests,  which- cannot  be  safely  applied  to  sections  of 
no  more  than  276  and  216  blank-verse  lines.  There  are 
certainly  more  double  endings  in  i  than  elsewhere,  but  this 
is  due  to  the  constant  recurrence  of  the  words  'brother', 
'mother*,  'father*  in  final  positions  during  the  Bastard 
episode,  and  this  is  for  emphasis  on  the  theme,  rather  than 
for  variety  of  rhythm.  There  is  no  evidence  of  a  Jacobean 
revival.  One  can  hardly  suppose  with  W.  W.  Lloyd  that 
*Now  these  her  princes  are  come  home  again'  (v/7.  115) 


Chap.  IX  KING  JOHN  367 

refers  to  the  return  of  Prince  Charles  and  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham  from  Spain  in  1623. 

The  principal  source  was  T.R.  which  is  followed  pretty 
closely  as  regards  historical  events,  the  selection  of  scenes, 
and  even  the  logical  run  of  many  of  the  dialogues.  The 
writing  itself  is  all  new,  but  Shakespeare  must  have  kept 
the  old  book  before  him.  Only  one  line  (v.  4.  42)  is  in 
common,  but  in  some  150  places  a  few  words  from  T.R. 
are  picked  up  and  used,  by  no  means  always  in  the  saine 
context.  Where  the  structure  is  altered,  there  is  generally 
a  dramatic  intention.  There  is  less  comedy.  Although 
T.R.  is  in  two  parts,  King  John  is  only  shorter  by  about 
300  lines.  Shakespeare  does  not  appear  to  have  made  any 
substantial  use  of  chronicles.  But  some  trifling  variations 
from  T.R.  may  be  due  to  these.  And  somehow  Shakespeare 
came  to  say  (iv.  2.  120)  that  Eleanor  died  on  April  i. 
That  is  an  historic  fact,  but  was  not  in  any  available 
chronicle.  Liebermann  suggests  that  Shakespeare  saw  it  in 
a  calendar  at  the  Earl  of  Southampton's  house  of  Beaulieu, 
where  Eleanor  founded  an  abbey.  But  I  incline  to  think, 
with  Moore  Smith,  that  he  arrived  at  it  by  accident,  having 
noticed  April  i  as  the  date  of  a  meteor,  recorded  by 
Holinshed  on  the  same  page  as  the  death* 

There  is  nothing  to  bear  out  the  suggestion  of  Pope 
that  T.R.  itself  was  by  Shakespeare  and  William  Rowley.1 
Malone  ascribed  it  to  Marlowe,  Sykes,  Sidelights  on  Sh^ 
99,  has  made  out  a  fair  case  for  Peele,  largely  on  the 
ground  of  small  recurrent  tricks  of  padding,  which  are 
more  evidential  (cf.  p.  221)  than  echoes.  The  strong 
nationalist  and  anti-papal  tone  is  consistent  with  Peele. 
Robertson,  Introduction,  278,  400,  weakens  some  details 
of  the  case,  and  argues  for  Marlowe  in  the  stronger  pas- 
sages, finding  also  some  inconclusive  'clues'  to  Greene 
and  Lodge. 

1  Var.  acr.  193. 


368  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

XIV.  THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE 

[S.R.  1598.]  xxij°  Julij.  James  Robertas.  Entred  for  his 
copie  vnder  the  handes  of  bothe  the  wardens,  a  booke  of 
the  Marchaunt  of  Venyce,  or  otherwise  called  the  Jewe  of 
Venyce,  Prouided,  that  yt  bee  not  prynted  by  the  said 
James  Robertes  or  anye  other  whatsoeuer  without  lycence 
first  had  from  the  Right  honorable  the  lord  Chamberlen 
vjd  (Arber,  iii.  122). 

[S.R.  1600.]  28  Octobris.  Thomas  Haies.  Entred  for  his 
copie  under  the  handes  of  the  Wardens  and  by  Consent 
of  master  Robertes.  A  booke  called  the  booke  of  the 
merchant  of  Venyce  vjd.  (Arber,  iii.  175). 

[Qi.  1600.]  The  most  excellent  Historic  of  the  Merchant 
of  Venice.  With  the  extreamecrueltie  of  Shylockethe  lewe 
towards  the  sayd  Merchant,  in  cutting  a  iust  pound  of  his 
flesh:  and  the  obtayning  of  Portia  by  the  choyse  of  three 
chests.  Asithathbeenediuers  times  acted  by  the  Lord  Cham- 
berlaine  his  Seruants.    Written  by  William  Shakespeare. 
[Ornament]  At  London,  Printed  by  I(ames)  R(oberts) 
for  Thomas  Heyes,  and  are  to  be  sold  in  Paules  Church- 
yard, at  the  signe  of  theGreeneDragon.  1600.  [Head-title] 
The  comicall  History  of  the  Merchant  of  Venice.  [Running- 
title]  The  comicall  Historic  of  the  Merchant  of  Venice. 
[Cited  by  Cambridge  and  other  eds.  as  Q2.] 
Facsimile.  C.  Praetorhis  (1887,  Sh.  Q.  xvi,  ed.  F.  J.  Furnivall). 
[Q2.  1619.]  The  Excellent  History  of  the  Merchant  of 
Venice.  With  the  extreme  cruelty  of  Shylocke  the  lew 
towards  the  saide  Merchant,  in  cutting  a  iust  pound  of  his 
flesh.  And  the  obtaining  of  Portia,  by  the  choyse  of  three 
Caskets.    Written  by  W.  Shakespeare.    [William  Jag- 
gard's  device  (McKerrow  283)]  Printed  by  J.  Roberts, 
1600.  [Head-title,  under  ornament  with  royal  arms]  The 
Comical  History  of  the  Merchant  of  Venice.   [Running- 
title]  The  Comicall  History  of  the  Merchant  of  Venice. 
[Cited  by  Cambridge  and  other  eds.  as  Qi.   On  the  misdating  cf. 
P- 1330 
Facsimile.  W.  Griggs  (1880,  Sh.  Q.  vii,  ed.  F.  J.  Furnivall). 


Chap.  IX          THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE  369 

[S.R.  1619.]  8°  Julxj  1619.  Laurence  Hayes.  Entred  for 
his  Copies  by  Consent  of  a  full  Court  theis  two  Copies 
following  which  were  the  Copies  of  Thomas  Haies  his 
fathers  viz*.  A  play  Called  The  Marchant  of  Venice,  .  .  . 
(Arber,  iii.  651). 

[Fi.    1623.]    [Catalogue]    The    Merchant    of    Venice. 
[Comedies,  pp.  1 63-84,  sign.  O  4-$  ^\    Head-  and  Run- 
ning-titles] The  Merchant  of  Venice. 
[Acts  marked.] 

[Q3-  l637-]  M.  P.  for  Laurence  Hayes. 
['Actors'  names'  <Dramatis  Personae)  on  back  of  t.p.J 
[£4.  1652.]  for  William  Leake. 
[Sheets  of  Q3  reissued.] 

[S.R,  1657,  Oct.  17.]  Transfer  from  Bridget  Hayes  and 
Jane  Graisby  to  William  Leake  (Eyre,  ii.  150). 
Parallel-Text.  W.  Reynolds  (i 888,  Banhide^  Qi+Fi). 
Modern  Editions.    H.  H.  Furness  (1888,  New  Variorum}-,  C  K. 
Pooler  (1905,  1927,  Arden}\  W.  L.  Phelps  (1923,  Tale}\  A.  T. 
Quiller-Couch  and  J.  D.  Wilson  (1926,  C.t7,P.). 

Dissertations  K.  Elze,  Zum  M.7.  (1871,  J.  vi,  129;  Essays,  67);  L. 
Toulmin  Smith,  The  Bond-Story  in  M.V.  (1875,  N.S.S.  Trans.  181);  S. 
Lee,  The  Original  of  Shy  lock  (i  880,  Gent.  Mag.),  Elizabethan*  England  and 
the  Jews  (1888,  N.S.S.  Trans.  143);  H.  Graetz,  Shytock  in  den  Sagen,  in 
den  Dramen,  und  in  der  Geschichte  (1880);  J.  Bolte,  Jakob  Rosefeldfs 
Moschus  (i  886,  J.  xxi.  1 87),  Der  Jude  von  Fenetien  (i 887,  J.  xxii.  1 89), 
ZurShylockfabel(  1 892,  J.  xxvii.  22  5);  W.  A.  Clouston,  Shylockandhis  Pre- 
decessors (1887,  June  1 8,  Aug.  6,  Academy)\  E.  K6ppel,  M.7.  (1892,  E.S. 
xvi-  372);  J-  W.  Hales,  $L  and  the  Jews  (1894,  E.H.R.  ix.  652);  A. 
Dimock,  The  Conspiracy  of  Dr.  Lopez  (1894,  E.H.R.  ix.  440);  E.  Moiy, 
Ms  Jude  von  Malta  und  Shs  M.7.  (1897);  R.  Eberstadt,  Der  Shylock- 
vertrag  und  sein  Urbild  (1908,  J.  xliv.  i);  F.  Brie,  2ur  Entstehung  des 
M.7.  (1913,  J.  xlix.  97);  B.  A.  P.  van  Dam,  The  Text  of  M.7.  (1927, 
Neophilologus,  xiii.  33);  A.  Tretiak,  M.7.  and  the  Alien  Question  (1929, 
R.E.S.  v.  402). 

Qi  is  a  good  text,  and  requires  very  little  emendation,  so 
far  as  the  wording  goes,  except  for  a  few  literal  misprints. 
A  bad  one  at  iv.  i .  73-4  was  corrected  while  sign.  (£4  was 
being  printed  off  and  does  not  appear  in  all  examples. 
Some  departures  from  Qi  in  modern  editions  are  due  to 

3X42.1  B  b 


370  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

the  erroneous  belief  of  the  Cambridge  editors  that  Q2  was 
the  earlier  version.    The  mislineations  are  slight,  and 
generally  caused  by  a  wrong  treatment  of  short  lines.  The 
author's  intention  as  regards  elisions  seems,  as  a  rule,  to 
be  carefully  regarded.  The  punctuation  is  less  good;  full 
stops  or  colons  are  occasionally  omitted  or  inserted  in 
error.  There  are  some  odd  typographical  features.  A  tem- 
porary shortage  of  type  may  perhaps  explain  the-frequent 
appearance  of  lower-case  initials  at  the  beginnings  of  lines. 
It  is  difficult  to  believe,  with  Van  Dam,  in  an  aberration 
through  which  the  compositor  followed  the  minuscules 
which  he  probably  found  in  his  copy.  There  is  a  variant 
use  of  roman  and  italic  types  for  stage-directions.  These 
are  normal.  One  entry  and  several  exits  are  left  unmarked. 
A  theatrical  hand  has  probably  added  some  definition, 
glossing,  for  example  (ii.  5.  i),  'Enter  lewe  and  his  man 
that  was'  with  the  final  words  'the  Clowne'.  Lancelot  is 
often  'Clowne'  and  Shylock  'Jew'  in  stage-directions  and 
speech-prefixes.  Wilson,  who  generally  finds  evidence  of 
revision  in  such  variants,  here  suggests  the  type-shortage 
as  the  cause,  but  the  feature  is  common  (cf,  p.  232)  in 
Shakespearean  texts.  Abbreviated  speech-prefixes  have  led 
to  some  confusion  among  minor  characters  of  similar 
names.  Wilson  may  be  right  in  thinking  that  Shakespeare 
only  provided  a  Solanio  and  a  Salerio,  and  that  a  Salarino 
has  emerged  from  the  confusion.    The  'Dramatis  Per- 
sonae*  of  the  1637  Q  include  Salanio  and  Salarino,  but 
not  Salerio*    This  may  only  rest  on  inference  from  the 
stage-directions.  There  is  some  irregularity  in  the  use  of 
speech-prefixes  before  and  after  letters  and  inscriptions 
read  (cf.  p.  198)  from  'scrolls'.  I  see  no  clear  reason  why 
the  copy  used  for  Qi  should  not  have  been  in  Shake- 
speare's hand.  The  features  just  described  seem  charac- 
teristic of  him,  and  the  compositor  has  passed  some 
abno'rmal  spellings  analogous  to  those  (cf.  p.  1 87)  in  other 
plays.  I  do  not,  therefore,  find  sufficient  evidence  for  the 
element  of  'assembling'  in  Wilson's  elaborate  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  textual  history  of  the  play.  As  pointed  out  by 
Greg,  the  phrase  'A  booke  called  the  booke  of  in  the  S.R. 


Chap.  IX  THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE  371 

entry  of  28  October  1 600  suggests  the  use  of  official  copy 
from  the  theatre.1 

Pollard,  F.  and  Q.  98>  and  Wilson  have  sufficiently 
shown  that  Q2  and  F  were  set  up  independently  from  Qi. 
Some  misprints  have  in  both  cases  been  corrected  and 
others  made,  and  in  both  cases  there  has  been  some 
attempt  at  a  revision  of  stage-directions  and  speech-pre- 
fixes, and  at  conjectural  emendation,  generally  erroneous, 
of  sense,  grammar,  metre,  and  spelling.  I  do  not  know 
that  most  of  this  is  beyond  a  printing-house  corrector,  and 
Jaggard  is  not  very  likely  to  have  had  access  in  1619  to 
theatrical  manuscripts.  But  the  Qi  used  for  F  prob- 
ably represented  prompt-copy.  Musical  notes  have  been 
added.  Two  profanities  (i.  2.  121;  v.  i.  157)  have  been 
removed,  and  the  substitution  (i.  2.  83)  of  an  'other'  for 
a  'Scottish'  lord  points  to  Jacobean  censorship.  What  is 
more  puzzling  is  that  some  of  the  Q2  and  F  alterations 
agree,  and  that  a  few  of  these  are  not  very  likely  to  have 
been  independently  arrived  at.  Possibly  the  corrector  of 
F  glanced  from  time  to  time  at  a  copy  of  Q2  preserved 
in  Jaggard's  printing-house. 

I  return  to  Wilson's  reconstruction.  This  I  have  dis- 
cussed more  fully  in  M.L.R.  xxii.  220.  It  involves  (a)  the 
prompt-book  of  The  Jew  (v.  infra) ;  (£)  several  probable 
intermediate  handlings  by  various  dramatists;  (r)  a  revi- 
sion by  Shakespeare  early  in  1594;  00  ^e  addition  of  a 
passage  after  the  execution  of  Lopez  in  June  1594; 
(i)  a  further  revision  by  Shakespeare  at  an  unknown  date; 
(/)  the  presumable  loss  of  the  prompt-book;  (g)  the  tran- 
scription by  one  scribe  of  the  dialogue  from  players' 
'parts',  with  abbreviated  speech-prefixes  to  form  a  new 
prompt-book;  (K)  the  addition  of  stage-directions  by  an- 
other scribe;  (*)  the  insertion  of  theatrical  interpolations. 

I  agree  with  Greg  and  Wilson  that  v.  i.  34-48  is  prob- 
ably a  theatrical  interpolation  in  the  interests  of  the  clown, 
disclosed  by  the  misplacement  of  a  catchword  intended  to 
connect  it  with  the  text.  But  its  existence  hardly  justifies 
the  assumption  that  one  (iii.  2.  216)  of  several  indelicacies 

»  4  Library,  vii.  384$  cf.  p.  97* 
Bb2 


372  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

is  also  an  interpolation,  and  still  less  the  treatment  by 
Wilson  of  iii.  5,  with  its  beautiful  laudation  of  Portia  from 
Jessica's  mouth,  as  a  scene  in  which  'Shakespeare  had  no 
hand  whatever'.  Nor  do  I  find  adequate  evidence  for  the 
supposed  double  recension  by  Shakespeare,  either  in  the 
fact  that  the  mask  planned  in  u.  iv-vi  is^never  given;  or 
in  the  obscurity  as  to  the  cause  of  Antonio's  melancholy, 
which  to  me  as  to  Wilson  seems  sufficiently  explained  by 
his  prevision  of  the  loss  of  a  friend  through  marriage;  or 
in  the  frequent  short  lines,  which  are  all,  except  possibly 
ii.  6.  46,  intelligible  enough  without  recourse  to  the  sup- 
position of  cuts. 

As  to  the  date  of  the  play,  there  is  not  much  external 
evidence  to  go  upon.  Some  reference  to  the  execution  of 
the  Jew  Roderigo  Lopez  on  7  June  1 594  for  the  attempted 
poisoning  of  Elizabeth  and  of  Don  Antonio  of  Portugal 
(confused  by  Lee  134  and  others  with  Antonio  Perez)  is 
probable;  especially,  as  Wilson  points  out,  in  the  Pytha- 
gorean description  (iv.  I.  134)  of  Shylock  as  inhabited  by 
the  spirit  of  a  wolf  (lupus)  'hang'd  for  human  slaughter'.1 
But  the  analogy  of  Shylock  to  Lopez  is  not  very  close, 
and  there  is  obviously  little,  beyond  the  name,  between 
the  Merchant  and  Don  Antonio.  There  may  also  be  an 
allusion  (iii.  2.  49)  to  the  coronation  of  Henri  IV  on 
27  February  1594,  although  presumably  every  coronation 
has  its  flourish.  In  any  case  such  allusions  are  not  neces- 
sarily quite  contemporary.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Gobbo 
of  the  play  seems  likely  to  have  inspired  two  malicious 
references  by  Francis  Davison  in  letters  of  1596  to  an 
unnamed  enemy  of  the  Earl  of  Essex,  who  can  only  be 
the  hunch-backed  Robert  Cecil.2  On  October  27  he 
writes,  'If  he  be  vanquished  ...  all  the  world  shall  never 
make  me  confess,  but  that  bumbasted  legs  are  a  better 
fortification  than  bulwarks,  and  S*  Gobbo  a  far  greater  and 
more  omnipotent  saint  than  either  S*  Philip  or  S1  Diego'. 
And  on  November  10  he  writes,  evidently  with  reference 
to  Cecil's  appointment  as  Secretary  of  State,  of  'the  late 

1  Cf.  Donne,  Progress  of  the  Soul,  401. 

2  T.  Birch,  Elizabeth,  ii.  185,  204. 


Chap.  IX         THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE  373 

instalment  and  canonisation  of  the  venerable  saint'.  If  I 
am  right,  Merchant  of  Venice  can  hardly  be  later  than  the 
autumn  of  1 596,  although  of  course  it  might  have  furnished 
Cecil's  nickname  some  time  before.  On  general  grounds 
of  style  and  links  with  other  plays  and  the  Sonnets^  the 
autumn  of  1 596  is  a  very  probable  date  for  the  play,  which  is 
certainly  more  mature  than  the  comedies  of  i  $94-5.  There 
was  a  revival  for  the  court  in  the  winter  of  1 604-5  (App-  D)» 
The  two  main  elements  of  the  plot,  .the  bond-motive 
and  the  casket-motive,  have  been  traced  as  old  and  wide- 
spread story  themes.  So  far  as  the  bond-motive  is  con- 
cerned, it  is  unnecessary  to  go  farther  back,  in  seeking  an 
ultimate  source  for  Merchant  of  Venice^  than  //  Pecorone, 
iv.  i,  of  Ser  Giovanni  of  Florence,  written  c.  1378,  but 
first  printed  in  1558.  This  combines  the  lover  and  his 
older  friend,  the  wooing  of  a  lady  at  Belmont,  the  friend's 
bond  to  a  Jew  for  a  pound  of  flesh,  the  intervention  of  the 
lady  dressed  as  a  lawyer,  and  the  ring  begged  as  a  fee.  It 
does  not  bring  in  the  theft  of  the  usurer's  daughter,  which 
is,  however,  found  in  another  bond  story,  yielding  several 
points  of  resemblance  to  Shakespeare's,  in  Anthony  Mun- 
day's  Zelauto  (1580).  And  the  test  by  which  the  lady  is 
won  is  other  than  that  of  the  casket-motive.  This  may 
have  been  substituted  from  the  66th  story  of  Richard 
Robinson's  version,  apparently  first  printed  in  1577,  of 
the  Gesta  Romanorum.1  Possibly  Shakespeare  did  not  him- 


self link  the  two  themes.  Stephen  Gosson's  Schoole  of 
Abuse  (1$  7  9)  mentions  a  'lew  . . .  showne  at  the  Bull . . . 
representing  the  greedinesse  of  worldly  chusers,  and 
bloody  mindes  of  usurers:  .  ,  .  neither  with  amorous 
gesture  wounding  the  eye :  nor  with  slouenly  talke  hurting 
the  eares  of  the  chast  hearers'.2  We  know  no  more  of  this 


There  may  conceivably  be  an  allusion  to  it  in 
fcreene's  Mamlttia  (1583),  32,  'He  which  makethchoyce 
of  bewty  without  vertue  commits  as  much  folly  as  Critius 
did,  in  choosing  a  golden  boxe  filled  with  rotten  bones' ; 
and  less  probably,  in  view  of  the  date,  in  a  letter  (c.  1573) 

1  S.  J.  H.  Herrage,  Early  English        a  Etiz.  Stage,  iv.  204. 
Versions  of  the  G.R.  xxii. 


374  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

of  Gabriel  Harvey  to  Edmund  Spenser,  describing  him- 
self as  'He  that  is  faste  bownde  unto  the  in  more  obliga- 
tions then  any  marchante  in  Italy  to  any  Jewe  there'.1 
There  is  of  course  nothing  to  show  that  Merchant  of  Venice 
had  any  closer  relation  to  the  Jew  than  that  of  theme.  As 
it  stands,  it  certainly  does  not  justify  the  ethical  com- 
mendation of  the  puritan  Gosson.  Wilson  does  not  go  far 
towards  establishing  a  textual  continuity  between  plays 
of  different  companies,  fifteen  or  twenty  years  asunder, 
with  several  probable  intermediate  handlings  by  various 
dramatists,  by  pointing  to  a  Shakespearean  inconsistency 
as  to  the  number  of  Portia's  wooers,  to  another  as  to  the 
precise  political  effect  which  a  refusal  of  justice  to  Shylock 
would  have  upon  the  state  of  Venice,  and  to  the  presence 
in  the  play  of  a  scrap  of  doggerel  and  some  passages  of 
inferior  workmanship.  There  are  traces  of  euphuism  in 
i.  2,  but  so  there  are  elsewhere  in  Shakespeare. 

Merchant  of  Venice  probably  owes  something  to  the  Jew 
of  Malta,  but  nothing  to  Wager's  Cruel  Debtor*  or  to 
Gerontus  the  Jew  and  the  Mercatore  in  R.  Wilson's  Three 
Ladies  of  London,*  or  to  the  bond-story  in  the  ballad  of  the 
Northern  Lord.*  There  are  some  verbal  parallels  in  that  of 
Gernutus.*  Whether  this  is  the  'ballad  called  the  vserers 
rewarde*  registered  on  19  June  1594  must  be  uncertain.6 
Those  in  the  9^th  declamation?  of  The  Orator  (1596),  a 
translation  by  L(azarus)  P(iot)  from  the  Histoires  Tra- 
giques  (1588)  of  Alexandra  Vandenbushe  or  Sylvain,  are 
very  slight,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  translation, 
which  had  still  to  be  made  when  the  book  was  registered 
on  1  5  July  1  596,  is  not  later  than  Merchant  of  Venice  itself.8 
Piot  was  at  one  time  identified  with  Anthony  Munday, 
but  H.  Thomas,  Spanish  and  Portuguese  Romances  of 
Chivalry  (1920),  has  distinguished  them.  An  earlier  and 
apparently  only  partial  translation  of  the  Histoires  Tra- 
giques  by  E.  A.  was  registered  on  25  August  1590,  but  is 

1  G.  Harvefs  Letter-Book,  78.  »  Jttf.  i.  x.  375. 

*  Arber,  ii.  654. 


.,...*  ,    .       . 

EB*.  Stop,  Si.  515.  *  Hazlitt,  $h.  Library,  i.  i.  355. 

Haditt,  Si.  Library,  i.  i.  367.  *  Arber,  iil  67. 


Chap.  IX  THE  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE  375 

unknown.1  The  names  Shylock  (cormorant)  and  Jessica 
(looker-out)  are  shown  by  Gollancz  to  be  of  Hebrew 
origin.  Gobbo  is  traceable  as  a  family  name  at  Titchfield, 
Hants.2 

English  actors  in  Germany,  probably  the  company  of 
John  Green,  played  The  Jew  or  The  Jew  of  Venice  at 
Passau  (1607),  Griz  (1608),  Halle  (161 1),  and  Joseph  the 
Jew  of  Venice  at  Dresden  (i626).3  Possibly  this  is  also 
the  play  called  at  Gr£z  A  King  of  Cyprus  and  a  Duke  of 
Venice^  and  in  part  at  least  the  foundation  of  a  later  German 
play  by  the  actor  Christopher  Bliimel  (born  1630)  of 
which  MSS.  are  at  Vienna  and  Karlsruhe.  This  contains 
elements  from  both  Merchant  of  Venice  and  Jew  of  Malta, 
but  cannot  be  called  a  version  of  either.  A  King  of  Cyprus, 
a  Duke  of  Venice,  a  Venetian  Jew,  called  both  Barabbas 
and  Josephus,  and  a  French  Doctor  are  among  the  charac- 
ters. It  must  remain  uncertain  whether  the  compilation 
also  drew  upon  Dekker's  lost  Jew  of  Venice^  registered  on 
9  September  i6$3,4  and  whether  this  bore  any  relation 
to  the  Admiral's  play  or  plays  of  the  Venetian  Comedy  and 
the  French  Doctor  in  1 594.5  But  it  is  safe  to  say  that  no 
ground  has  been  shown  for  the  suggestion  of  Fleay,  L.  and 
W*  30,  1 97,  that  Merchant  of  Venice  was  founded  on  a  Jew 
of  Venice  written  by  Dekker  c.  1592, 

XV,  XVL   HENRY  THE  FOURTH 

[Parti] 

[S.R.  1598.]  xxvto  die  February.  Andrew  Wyse.  Entred 
for  his  Copie  vnder  thandes  of  Master  Dix:  and  master 
Warden  Man  a  booke  intituled  The  historye  of  Henry 
the  inj*  with  his  battaile  of  Shrewsburye  against  Henry 
Hottspurre  of  the  Northe  with  the  conceipted  mirthe  of 
Sir  John  Ffalstoff  vjd  (Arber,  iii.  105). 
[H.P.  had  (Rarities^  19)  a  fragment  (sign.  C,  4  leaves)  of  an  edition 
which  he  thought  earlier  than  Qi.  It  is  now  in  the  collection  of 
H.  C.  Folger  (Bartlett  25).] 

x  Ibid.  ii.  560.  3  Etiz.  Stage,  ii.  281. 

*  L.  G.  Thompson  in  T.LJS.  17         4  Ibid.  iii.  301. 
Sept.  1925.  s  Cf.  Greg,  Henslowe,  ii.  170. 


3?6  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

[Qi.  1598.]  The  History  of  Henrie  the  Fourth;  With  the 
battell  at  Shrewsburie,  betweene  the  King  and  Lord  Henry- 
Percy,  surnamed  Henrie  Hotspur  of  the  North.  With  the 
humorous  conceits  of  Sir  lohn  Falstalffe,  [Short's  device 
(McKerrow  278)]  At  London,  Printed  by  P(eter) 
S(hort)  for  Andrew  Wise,  dwelling  in  Paules  Church- 
yard, at  the  signe  of  the  Angell  1598.  [Head-title]  The 
Historic  of  Henry  the  fourth.  [Running-title']  The  Historic 
of  Henrie  the  fourth. 
Facsimile.  W.  Griggs  (1881,  Sh.  Q.  viii,  ed.  H.  A.  Evans). 

[Q2.  1599.]  The  History  of  Henrie  the  Fourth;  With 
the  battell  at  Shrewsburie,  betweene  the  King  and  Lord 
Henry  Percy,  surnamed  Henry  Hotspur  of  the  North. 
With  the  humorous  conceits  of  Sir  lohn  Falstaffe.  Newly 
corrected  by  W,  Shake-speare.  [Stafford's  device  (Mc- 
Kerrow 281)]  At  London,  Printed  by  S(imon)  S(taf- 
ford)  for  Andrew  Wise,  dwelling  in  Paules  Church-yard, 
at  the  signe  of  the  Angell.  1599.  [Head-  and  Running- 
titles]  The  Historic  of  Henry  the  fourth. 

[S,R.  1603.]  25  Junij.  Mathew  Lawe.  Entred  for  his 
copie  in  full  courte  Holden  this  Day.  These  ffyve  copies 
followinge  .  .  .  viz  iii  enterludes  or  playes  .  .  .  The  Third 
of  Henry  the  .4  the  first  parte.  all  kinges  ...  all  whiche 
by  consent  of  the  Company  are  sett  ouer  to  him  from 
Andrew  Wyse  (Arber,  iii.  239). 

[Q3.  1604.]  The  History  of  Henrie  the  fourth,  With  the 
battell  at  Shrewsburie,  betweene  the  King,  and  Lord 
Henry  Percy,  surnamed  Henry  Hotspur  of  the  North. 
With  the  humorous  conceits  of  Sir  lohn  Falstaffe.  Newly 
corrected  by  W.  Shake-speare.  [Ornament]  London 
Printed  by  Valentine  .Simmes,  for  Mathew  Law,  and  are 
to  be  solde  at  his  shop  in  Paules  Churchyard,  at  the  signe 
of  the  Fox.  1604.  [Head-  an4  Running-titles]  The  His- 
toric of  Henry  the  fourth. 

[£4.  1608.]  The  History  of  Henry  the  Fourth,  With  the 
battell  at  Shrewesburie,  betweene  the  King,  and  Lord 
Henry  Percy,  surnamed  Henry  Hotspur  of  the  North. 
With  the  humorous  conceites  of  Sir  lohn  Falstalffe.  Newly 


Chap.  IX  HENRY  THE  FOURTH  377 

corrected  by  W.  Shake-speare.  [Ornament]  London, 
Printed  for  Mathew  Law,  and  are  to  be  sold  at  his  shop 
in  Paules  Churchyard,  neere  vnto  S.  Augustines  gate,  at 
the  signe  of  the  Foxe,  1608.  [Head-title]  The  Historic  of 
Henry  the  fourth.  [Running-title']  The  History  of  Henrie 
the  fourth. 

[Q£.  1613.]  The  History  of  Henrie  the  fourth,  With  the 
Battell  at  Shrewseburie,  betweene  the  King,  and  Lord 
Henrie  Percy,  surnamed  Henrie  Hotspur  of  the  North. 
With  the  humorous  conceites  of  Sir  lohn  Falstaffe.  Newly 
corrected  by  W.  Shake-speare.  [White's  device  (McKer- 
row  i88b)]  London,  Printed  by  W(illiam)  W(hite>  for 
Mathew  Law,  and  are  to  be  sold  at  his  shop  in  Paules 
Church-yard,  neere  vnto  S.  Augustines  Gate,  at  the  signe 
of  the  Foxe.  1613.  [Head-title']  The  Historic  of  Henrie 
the  fourth.  [Running-title]  The  Historic  of  Henry  the 
fourth. 
[Q6.  1622.]  T(homas)  P(urfoot)  for  Mathew  Law. 

[Fi.  1623.]  [Catalogue]  The  First  part  of  King  Henry 

the  fourth.  [Histories,  pp.  46-73,  sign,  d  5v-f  6.  Head-title] 

The  First  Part  of  Henry  the  Fourth,  with  the  Life  and 

Death  of  Henry  Sirnamed  Hotspur.   [Running-title]  The 

First  Part  of  King  Henry  the  Fourth. 

[Acts  and  sec.  marked.] 

[Q?-  J632']  lohn  Norton,  sold  by  William  Sheares. 

[Q8.  1639.]  John  Norton,  sold  by  Hugh  Perry. 

Parallel-Text.  W.  H.  Fleming  (1890,  Bankside). 

Modern  Editions.    R.  P.  Cowl  and  A.  E.  Morgan  (1914,  1923, 

Arderi)\  S.  B.  Hemingway  (1917,  Yah}. 

\PartII] 

[S.R.  1600.]  23  Augusti.  Andrew  Wyse  William  Aspley. 
Entred  for  their  copies  vnder  the  handes  of  the  wardens 
Two  bookes,  the  one  called  . .  .  Thother  the  second  parte 
of  the  history  of  Kinge  Henry  the  mf*  with  the  humours 
of  Sir  John  Falstaff:  Wrytten  by  master  Shakespere. 
xijd  (Arber,  iii.  170). 


378  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

[Q.  1600.]  The  Second  part  of  Henrie  the  fourth,  con- 
tinuing to  his  death,  and  coronation  of  Henrie  the  fift. 
With  the  humours  of  sir  lohn  Falstaffe,  and  swaggering 
Pistoll.  As  it  hath  been  sundrie  times  publikely  acted  by 
the  right  honourable,  the  Lord  Chamberlaine  his  seruants. 
Written  by  William  Shakespeare.  [Ornament]  London 
Printed  by  V(alentine)  S(immes)  for  Andrew  Wise,  and 
William  Aspley.  1600.  [Head-title]  The  second  part 
of  Henry  the  fourth,  continuing  to  his  death,  and  corona- 
tion of  Henry  the  fift.  [Running-title]  The  second  part 
of  Henry  the  fourth. 

[In  some  examples  a  cancel  sheet  E,  with  six  leaves  in  place  of  four, 

adds  iii.  I,  originally  omitted.] 

Facsimile.  W.  Griggs  (1882,  Sk.  Q.  ix,  ed.  H.  A.  Evans). 

[Fi.  1623.]    [Catalogue']    The  Second  part  of  K.  Henry 

the  fourth.    [Histories,  pp.  74-100+2  pp.  unnumbered, 

sign.f6v-gg8v.  Head-title]  The  Second  Part  of  Henry  the 

Fourth,  Containing  his  Death:  and  the  Coronation  of  King 

Henry  the  Fift.  [Running-title]  The  second  Part  of  King 

Henry  the  Fourth. 

[Acts  and  sec  ^  marked.  ^  The  Actors  Names'  at  end.    Pollard, 

^•0*  X3^j  Scribes  some  irregularities  in  the  printing.] 

Parallel-Text.  W.  H.  Fleming  (1890,  Bankside). 

Modern  Editions.    S.  B.  Hemingway  (1921,  Tah)\  R.  P.  Cowl 


[Parts  I  and  II] 
Dering  MS. 

[A  compilation,  in  a  seventeenth-century  hand,  of  scenes  from  Q5 
of  Part  i  and  Q  of  Part  2,  probably  for  private  performance,  with 
alterations  in  the  hand  of  Sir  Edward  Bering  (1598-1644)  of 
Surrenden,  Kent,  where  the  MS.  was  found.] 
Edition.  J.  O.  Halliwell-[Phillipps]  (1845,  Sh.  Soc.). 
Dissertations.  ].  Gairdner,  Historical  Elements  in  SA.'s  Falstaff  (1873, 
Fortnightly)^  K.  Hagena,  Remarks  on  the  Introductory  Scene  of  2  Hen.  17 
(1878,  tt*A  Tram.  347);  F.  Solly-Flood,  The  Story  of  Prince  Henry  of 
Monmouth  and  Chief-  Justice  Gascoign(i%*6,  2  R.Hist.Soc.  7JwRf.iii.47); 
G.  Sanazm,  Falstaff,  Pistol,  Nym  und  ihre  Urbilder  (1902,  Kleine  SL 
Studien}9Nym.undBenJ<mson  (1904,  7,xl.2i2);  F.  W.  Moorman,  SL9s 
History  Plays  and  Daniel's  Civile  Wars  (1904,  J.  xl.  69);  W.  Baeske, 
Oldcastle-Falstaff  in  der  engtttchen  Literatur  bis  zu  SA.  (1905);  L.  W. 


Chap.  IX  HENRY  THE  FOURTH  379 

Harcourt,  The  Two  Sir  John  Fa/staffs  (1910, 3  R.  Hist.  Soc.  Trans,  iv.  50); 
C.  L.  Kingsford,  The  First  English  Life  of  Henry  ^(1911);  H.  Ax,  The 
Relation  of  Sh.'s  Hen.  17 to  Holinshed  (19 1 2) ;  A.  W.  Pollard,  The  Parian* 
Settings  in  2  Hen.  IV  and  their  Spellings  (1920,  Oct.  21,  T.L.S.)\  J. 
Monaghan,  Falsta/  and  his  Forbears  (1921,  S.P.  xviii.  353);  A.  E. 
Morgan,  Some  Problems  of  Sh.'s  Hen.  7^(1924,^.^1.);  R.  P.  Cowl, 
Some  Literary  Allusions  in  Hen.IV(i<)2$9  Mar.  26,  T.L.S.),  Echoes  of  Henry 
IV  in  Eliz.  Drama  (1925,  Oct.  22,  T.L.S.),  Some  Echoes  in  Eliz.  Drama 
of  Hen.  7/^(1926),  Hen.  IV  and  Other  Plays:  an  Experiment  with  Echoes 
(1927),  Notes  on  the  Text  of  Hen.  7/^(1927),  Sources  of  the  Text  of  Hen.  IV 
(1929);  J.  E.  Morris,  The  Date  of  Hen.  7^(1926,  Jan.  28,  T.L.S.);  W.  G. 
Bowling,  The  Wild  Prince  Hal  in  Legend  and  Literature  (1926,  Washington 
Univ.  Studies,  xiii.  305);  R.  A.  Law,  Structural  Unity  in  the  two  Parts  of 
Hen.  7/^(1927,  S.P.  xxiv.  223);  J.  Dawtrey,  The Falstaff  Saga  (1927). 

The  successive  Qq  and  Fi  of  Part  i  are  regularly  set 
up  from  each  other,  with  the  usual  misprints  and  conjec- 
tural alterations.  Nothing  more  than  these  justifies  the 
'Newly  corrected*  of  the  Q2  title-page.  The  Cambridge 
editors  thought  that  Qq  earlier  than  Q$  were  probably 
consulted  for  Fi,  but  the  few  cases  in  which  F  seems  to 
revert  to  these  are  all  capable  of  explanation  as  conjec- 
tures. Profanity  has,  however,  been  excised  from  Fi  with 
exceptional  thoroughness.  The  normal  stage-directions  of 
Q  i  are  preserved  by  F I .  Q I  is  therefore  the  sole  authority 
for  the  text.  This  is  somewhat  rough  metrically,  owing 
partly  to  the  difficulty  of  manipulating  proper  names,  and 
partly  to  misprints  as  to  elisions  and  the  like,  which  editors 
might  perhaps  emend  more  freely  than  they  do. 

The  Q  and  Fi  of  Part  2,  on  the  other  hand,  although 
representing  substantially  the  same  text,  show  much 
greater  variation  in  detail.  The  Q  stage-directions  are  normal, 
and  some  disagreements  (i.  i .  i ,  34,  1 6 1 ;  i.  3 .  i ;  ii.  4.  2 1 ; 
iv.  3.  27,  8 1 ;  iv.  4.  i)  between  stage-directions  and  text  as 
to  the  personages  introduced  are  best  explained  as  the 
result  of  changes  of  intention  by  the  author  during 
composition.  Thus  in  i.  I.  Lord  Bardolf  has  replaced  Sir 
John  Umfreville  through  a  belated  historical  correction, 
not  fully  carried  out.  There  are  some  abnormal  spellings, 
such  as  'Scilens'  for  'Silence*,  which  may  also  (cf.  p.  187) 
point  to  the  author's  hand.  The  MS.  has  probably  been 
used  as  prompt-copy,  since  at  v.  4.  i  the  name  of  the 


38o  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

actor  Sincklo  is  given  to  the  Beadle  whom  he  played. 
When  Q  was  first  set  up,  iii.  i  was  omitted,  and  Pollard's 

employed  in  partly  resetting  sheet  E  with  two  additional 
leaves  to  allow  of  its  introduction*  Some  examples  of 
Q  retain  the  unrevised  sheet.  Slighter  corrections  are  also 
found  in  other  sheets.  The  main  differences  between  Q 
and  F  are  as  follows.  There  are  many  small  textual 
variants.  These  do  not  indicate  constant  subconscious 
substitutions,  such  as  some  plays  (cf.  p.  180)  exhibit. 
Many  look  like  alternative  readings  of  a  difficult  copy,  and 
many  like  sophistications  in  F  or  wording  and  grammar. 
Some  short  lines  are  perhaps  needlessly  filled  out.  Pro- 
fanity has  again  been  meticulously  removed.  There  are 
several  passages,  aggregating  168  lines,  not  in  Q  (i.  i. 
166-79,  189-209;  i.  3.  21-4,  36-55,  85-108;  ii.  3. 
23-45 ;  iv.  i.  55-79, 103-39),  and  as  the  absence  of  some 
of  these  leaves  lacunae  in  the  sense,  they  may  all  be  taken 
as  'cuts'  in  Q.  On  the  other  hand,  F  omits  about  forty  lines 
found  in  Q.  These  are  mostly  short  passages  not  likely  to 
be  cuts.  They  are  probably  not  all  to  be  explained  in  the 
same  way.  Some  may  be  due  to  slips  of  the  F  printer,  and 
others  (i.  1. 161 ;  iii.  i.  53-6 ;  iv.  i.  93, 95)  to  emendation. 
But  a  few  suggest  that  the  censorship  of  profanity  has  been 
extended  to  passages  of  indelicacy  (ii.  1. 126-7;  "•  2.  26— 
30;  ii.  4.  159-62;  iii.  2.  337-9,  340-3)  and  in  one  case 
(i.  2.  240-7)  anti-patriotic  criticism.  They  are  not  suffi- 
ciently detached  from  their  contexts  to  be  'gags'  in  Q,  The 
F  stage-directions  and  speech-prefixes  show,  unlike  those 
of  Part  2,  careful  revising,  with  close  attention  totheindica-. 
tions  of  the  text,  although  with  some  slips,  e.g.  the  omis- 
sion of  an  exit  and  re-entry  at  iii.  2. 234, 258.  'Suggestive* 
stage-directions  and  non-speaking  personages  have  been 
eliminated  and  entries  unmarked  in  Q  added.  It  seems 
clear  that  Ffollows  inthemain  a  theatrical  manuscript.  This 
may,  indeed,  have  been  thesamemanuscriptwhich  was  used 
for  Q,  but  if  so  it  had  undergone  subsequent  overhauling 
by  the  book-keeper,  and  the  intention  of  Q  must  have  been 
to  observe,  and  that  of  F  to  disregard,  the  cuts  shown  upon 


Chap.  IX  HENRY  THE  FOURTH  381 

it.  It  is  not  equally  clear  that  no  use  was  made  of  Q  in 
printing  F,  There  are  several  cases  of  common  error, 
which  would  at  least  be  consistent  with  such  use.  But 
these,  between  F  and  a  single  Q,  have  not  the  evidential 
value  which  attaches  to  common  errors  between  F  and  the 
derivative  Qq  of  other  plays. 

Morgan  thinks  that,  apart  from  the  'cuts'  in  the  Q  of 
Part  2,  both  parts  have  been  abridged.  His  evidence  for 
this  consists  mainly  of  short  lines.  So  far  as  Part  i  is  con- 
cerned, the  explanation  is  quite  superfluous;  but  Part  2 
has  some  abrupt  short  lines,  left  imperfectly  corrected  by 
F,  in  the  King's  speech  at  iv.  5.  60-82.  However  this 
may  be,  I  cannot  (cf.  p.  233)  accept  Morgan's  further 
view  that  the  prose  scenes  have  been  rewritten  from  an 
earlier  metrical  version,  at  the  time  when  Shakespeare 
substituted  Sir  John  Falstaff  as  his  leading  humorist  for 
Sir  John  Oldcastle.  As  to  the  fact  of  this  substitution 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  Tradition  from  as  early  as  about 
1625  (App.  C,  nos.  i,  iv,  v,  xxxiv)  records  it,  and  it  has 
left  traces  in  the  texts.  In  Part  i,  it  has  left  the  jesting 
address  'my  old  lad  of  the  Castle*  (i.  2.  47)  pointless,,  and 
ii.  2.  115  unmetrical.  In  Part  2,  Old.  still  stands  for  Fal 
as  speech-prefix  to  i,  2.  137  in  Q,  and  the  Epilogue, 
originally  short,  as  the  prayer  for  the  Queen  left  in  error 
by  Q  at  the  end  of  the  first  paragraph  shows,  has  been 
extended  by  two  other  paragraphs,  of  which  one  intro- 
duces a  dance,  and  the  other  an  apology,  'Olde-castle  died 
Martyre,  and  this  is  not  the  man'.  F  completes  the 
revision,  by  transferring  the  prayer  to  the  end  of  the  third 
paragraph.  There  is  an  echo  in  the  rival  Admiral's  play 
of  i  Sir  John  Oldcastk,1  produced  in  November  1599, 
where  the  prologue  has —  ' 

It  is  no  pamperd  glutton  we  present, 

Nor  aged  Councilor  to  youthfull  sinne, 

Let  fair  Truth  be  grac'te, 

Since  forg'de  inuention  former  time  defac'te. 

A  reason  for  the  change  can  readily  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  Sir  John  Oldcastle  married  an  ancestress  of  the  Lords 

1  Etix.  Stage,  iii.  306. 


382  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

Cobham,  who  were  prominent  at  the  Elizabethan  court. 
It  had  clearly  been  made  before  Part  2  was  registered  on 
25  February  1598,  and  almost  equally  clearly  not  before 
the  play  was  originally  produced,  since  'Oldcastle'  lingered 
in  popular  usage  as  the  name  of  the  character.  Henry  IV 
must  have  been  the  Sir  John  Old  Castett  with  which  the 
Lord  Chamberlain  entertained  an  ambassador  on  8  March 
1600,  since  the  players  were  his  men  and  not  the 
Admiral's;1  and  it  is  alluded  to  in  Field's  Amends  for 
Ladies  (1618),  iv.  3,  as — 

The  Play  where  the  fat  Knight,  hight  Old-castle, 
Did  tell  you  truly  what  his  honour  was  ? 

There  is  a  similar  reference  as  late  as  Hey  for  Honesty 
(1651),  iv.  i,  and  even  in  an  official  document  (App. 
D)  the  play  seems  to  be  called  Quid  Castel  in  1638. 
Perhaps,  therefore,  the  Cobham  intervention  came 
when  i  Henry  IV  was  specially  reviewed  by  the  Revels 
officers  for  court  performance.2  It  may  not  only  have 
been  Oldcastle's  name  that  went.  At  i.  2.  181  of  Part  i, 
Prince  Henry's  thieving  companions  are  'Falstaffe, 
Haruey,  Rossill,  and  Gadshil',  and  at  ii.  4.  193,  195,  199, 
are  speech-prefixes  for  Ross.  F  here  eliminates  him  by  a 
conjectural  redistribution  of  speeches,  but  it  is  clear  from 
other  parts  of  this  scene  and  from  ii.  2  that  Bardolph  and 
Peto  were  among  the  thieves.  In  Ettz.  Stage,  iii.  196,  I 
took  Rossill  and  Harvey  for  actors'  names;  wrongly  I 
think,  since  2  Hen.  IP \  ii.  2.  i,  has  the  stage-direction 
'Enter  the  Prince,  Poynes,  sir  lohn  Russel,  with  others'. 
F  substitutes  'Enter  Prince  Henry,  Pointz,  Bardolfe,  and 
Page'.  This  cannot  be  right,  since  Bardolph  and  the 
Page  enter  later  at  75.  But  apparently  Peto  has  replaced 
Sir  John  Russell  and  Bardolph  Harvey,  with  the  awkward 
result  of  having  two  Bardolphs  in  the  plays.  Both  Russell 
and  Harvey  were  familiar  names  at  the  Elizabethan  court. 
Possibly  a  desire  to  advertise  the  purging  of  the  offence 
led  to  the  publication  of  j  Henry  IF  unusually  soon  after 
its  production.  This  can  hardly  have  been  earlier  than 

'Cf.App.D.  * /*/</.  i.  224. 


Chap.  IX  HENRY  THE  FOURTH  383 

1597.  A  few  historical  allusions,  which  have  been  held 
to  a  date  later  than  1596,  are  indeed  unconvincing.  But 
obviously  the  play  was  later  than  Richard  //,  and  its 
relative  maturity  of  style  makes  it  reasonable  to  put  it 
after  John.  And  I  think  that  Part  2  must  have  followed 
pretty  quickly.  It  is  true  that  Meres'  notice  in  the  autumn 
of  1598  might  cover  either  one  or  two  parts,  but  Justice 
Silence  is  named  in  Jonson's  E.M.O.  of  I599,1  and  the 
survivals  of  Oldcastle  and  Russell  suggest  that  the 
writing  had  begun  before  these  names  were  censored. 
Cowl's  derivation  of  Pistol's  'Cannibal'  for  'Hannibal' (ii.  4. 
1 80)  from  a  passage  in  Brandon's  Virtuous  Octavia  of  1 598  2 
has  not  much  weight  against  this.  It  may  well  be  originally 
Pistol's,  and  echoed  both  by  Brandon  and  by  Jonson  in 
E.M.I.  (1598)  iii.  4.  53.  If  I  am  right  as  to  date,  the 
offended  Cobham  was  probably  Henry  Brooke,  the 
eighth  lord,  whose  susceptibilities  had  perhaps  also  to  be 
consulted  in  Merry  Wives  (q.v.),  and  not  his  father 
William,  the  seventh  lord,  who  was  Lord  Chamberlain 
from  8  August  1596  to  his  death  on  5  March  1597. 
Court  revivals  of  one  or  other  or  both  parts  of  the  play 
are  traceable  (App.  D)  in  1612-13,  c.  1619,  1625,  and 
1638. 

The  historical  source  of  Henry  17  was  Holinshed's 
Chronicle.  This  only  touches  lightly  upon  the  Prince's 
youthful  wantonness,  and  for  an  elaboration  of  the  theme, 
the  introduction  of  Oldcastle,  and  the  naming  of  a  minor 
character  Gadshill  after  the  scene  of  his  exploits,  Shake- 
speare probably  drew  upon  The  Famous  Victories  of  Henry 
the  Fifth)  an  old  play  of  the  Queen's  men.  This  was 
registered  on  14  May  1594,  but  the  first  extant  edition  is 
dated  159 8. 3  The  text,  wholly  in  prose,  is  probably  an 
abridged  one,  perhaps  from  a  two-part  play.  But  there  is 
little  ground  for  Morgan's  theory  that  the  original  was  in 
verse,  that  it  passed  to  the  Admiral's  men  and  was  pro- 
duced by  them  in  a  revised  form,  as  their  Henry  ^  of  1 5  9  5-6, 
and  that  it  was  then  transferred  by  them  to  the  Chamber- 
lain's, and  became  Shakespeare's  source  for  Henry  IV 

1  Ibid.  iii.  360.  *  Ibid.  iii.  236.  *  Ibid.  iv.  17. 


384  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

and  Henry  V.  Conjecture  for  conjecture,  it  is  much  more 
likely  that  an  edition  of  the  Famous  Victories^  as  we  now 
know  it,  was  issued  about  1594,  but  is  now  lost,  and  that 
this  was  used  as  a  source  by  Shakespeare,  and  perhaps 
independently  by  a  writer  for  the  Admiral's.  There  is  no 
evidence,  and  little  probability,  that  the  Chamberlain's 
and  the  Admiral's  ever  interchanged  play-books.  I  have 
considered  the  possible  Gloucestershire  local  colouring  of 
Part  i  in  ch.  i.  Oldys  (App.  C,  no.  xxxiv)  has  a  tradition 
that  Falstaff  was  drawn  by  Shakespeare  from  a  Stratford 
neighbour.  Dawtrey  would  find  in  him  a  ruffianly  and 
portly  Captain  Nicholas  Dawtrey,  who  served  in  Ireland, 
and  was  later  a  persistent  suitor  at  court.  But  if  Shake- 
speare wanted  a  model  for  his  elaboration  of  a  familiar 
stage  type,  there  must  have  been  many  out-at-elbows 
soldiers  of  fortune  available. 

XVIL   MUCH  ADO  ABOUT  NOTHING 

[S.R.  1600?] 

4  August! 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  I     +        1*.  4>     *      /4 

The  Commedie  of  muche  A  doo  about    >  ?*  ?  s  aA .       N 
nothing  a  booke  j(Arber,  m.  37). 

[On  the  significance  of  this  entry  cf.  p.  145.] 

[S.R.  1 600.]  23  Augusti,  Andrew  Wyse  William  Aspley. 
Entred  for  their  copies  vnder  the  handes  of  the  wardens 
Two  bookes,  the  one  called  Muche  a  Doo  about  nothinge 
. . .  Wrytten  by  master  Shakespere.  xijd.  (Arber,  iii.  170). 

[Q.  1600.]  [Ornament]  Much  adoe  about  Nothing.  As  it 
hath  been  sundrie  times  publikely  acted  by  the  right 
honourable,  the  Lord  Chamberlaine  his  seruants.  Written 
by  William  Shakespeare.  [Ornament]  London  Printed  by 
V(alentine)  S(immes)  for  Andrew  Wise,  and  William 
Aspley.  1600.  [Head-  and  Running-titles]  Much  adoe 
about  Nothing. 

Fac&mle.  C  Praetorius(i886,  Sh.  Q.  xiv5ed.  P,  A.  Daniel). 
[Fi,  1623.]    [Catalogue']    Much  adoo  about  Nothing. 


Chap.  IX  MUCH  ADO  ABOUT  NOTHING  385 

[Comedies,  pp.  101-21,  sign.  I  3~L  i,  Head-  and  Running- 
titles]  Much  adoe  about  Nothing. 
[Acts  i,  sc.  i,  ii-v  marked.] 
Parallel-Text.  W.  H.  Fleming  (1889,  Bankside). 
Modern  Editions.    H.  H.  Furness  (1899,  New  Variorum);  F.  S. 
Boas  (1916);  F.  Tucker  Brooke  (1917,  Yale)\  A.  T.  Quiller- 
Couch  and  J.  D.  Wilson  (1923,  C.I7.P.);  G.  R.  Trenery  (1924, 
Arden}\  A.  G.  Newcomer  (1929). 

Dissertations.  J.  P.  Collier,  Dogberry  and  his  Associates  (1844,  St.  Soc. 
Papers,  i.  i);  A.  E.  Brae,  Collier,  Coleridge  and  Sh.  (1860);  J.  Bolte, 
Deutsche  Ferwandte  von  Shs  M.A.  (1886,  J.xxi.  310);  K.  Weichberger, 
Die  Urquelle  von  Shs  MA.  (1898,  J.  xxxiv.  339);  G.  Sarrazin,  Die 
Abfassungszeit  von  M.A.  (1899,  J.  xxxv.  127);  M.  A.  Scott,  The  Book  of 
the  Courtyer:  a  Possible  Source  for  Benedick  and  Beatrice  (1901,  PM.LA+ 
xvi.  475);  F.  Holleck-Weithmann,  Zur  Quellenfrage  von  Shs  Lustspiel 
MA. (1901) ;  J.  Le  G.  Brereton, MA.  iv.  1. 145-60  (1928,  R.E.S.  iv.  84). 

Q  is  a  good  text,  with  a  few  abnormal  spellings  and  light 
punctuation,  especially  in  the  prose  scenes.  A  passage 
(iv.  i : .  1 57—60),  originally  omitted  by  the  compositor  and 
added  with  difficulty,  has  crowded  the  foot  of  a  page.  The 
stage-directions  and  speech-prefixes  are  more  than  usually 
casual,  although  the  relations  of  the  characters  are  often 
indicated.  A  good  many  entries  and  exits  are  unmarked. 
Characters  are  introduced  who  do  not  speak  (i.  i.  i,  96, 
206;  ii.  2.  i),  and  one  of  these,  Innogen,  Leonato's  wife, 
occurs  twice.  Other  characters  appear  with  generic  instead 
of  personal  names;  Don  John  as  'Bastard',  Anthonio  as 
'Old'  or  'Brother'.  The  irregularity  is  greatest  with  Dog- 
berry and  Verges.  They  are  so  named  in  iii.  3,  and 
Dogberry  is  called  'maister  Constable'.  In  iii.  5  they  enter 
as  'the  Constable,  and  the  Headborough',  and  in  some  of 
the  speech-prefixes  Dogberry  is  'Const.  Dog'  or  'Con. 
Do,'.  In  v.  i  they  both  enter  as  'Constables'  and  are 
respectively  'Const'  and  'Con  2'  in  speech-prefixes.  These 
scenes  remain  intelligible.  In  iv.  2  they  also  enter  as  'the 
Constables';  in  the  speech-prefixes  Dogberry  is  variously 
Andrew  (i.e.  Clown),  'Kemp',  'Kern',  'Ke',  'Keeper'  (a 
mere  misprint),  and  only  once  'Constable' ;  Verges  is  'Cow- 
ley',  'Couley',  'Const'.  Obviously  the  names  ofactors  have 
been  substituted  for  those  of  their  parts.  Wilson  thinks 

3I42.I  C  C 


386  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

that  this  was  done  by  Shakespeare  who  in  revising  (cf. 
infra)  could  not  remember  the  names  of  his  characters. 
These,  however,  he  must  have  invented  with  some  pains, 
and  it  is  more  plausible  to  suppose  that  he  wrote  'Con  i' 
and  'Con  2',  and  that  the  book-keeper,  finding  that  in  iv.  2 
'Con*  also  stood  for  Conrade,  indicated  the  actors'  names 
for  clarity.  He  may  also  have  made  some  additions  to  the 
speech-prefixes,  notably  at  ii.  i.  89,  where  a  scribbled 
'and  Balthaser,  Bor(achio)  dun  lohn'  has  been  read  by  the 
printer  as  'and  Balthaser,  or  dumb  lohn'. 

F  was  set  up  from  Q,  with  a  few  corrections  and  more 
misprints  and  sophistications,  well  analysed  by  Wilson. 
The  example  followed  must  have  been  used  as,  or  cor- 
rected by,  a  prompt-copy,  since  at  ii.  3.  39  the  name  of 
a  singer  'lacke  Wilson'  replaces  the  'Musicke'  of  Q. 
Musical  notes  have  been  added  at  ii.  i,  89,  161,  and  there 
has  been  an  inadequate  and  sometimes  incorrect  revision  of 
stage-directions  and  speech-prefixes.  The  elimination  of 
profanity  is  exceptionally  perfunctory;  one  passage  only 
(iv.  2.  19-22)  has  gone.  The  removal  of  a  hit  at  German 
and  Spanish  costume  (iii.  2.  34—7)  suggests  censorship, 
perhaps  at  the  time  (cf.  infra)  of  the  Palsgrave's  visit  in 
1612-13. 

Much  of  the  stage-direction  and  speech-prefix  con- 
fusion can  be  cleared  up  by  realizing  that  the  singer  Bal- 
thaser is  also  Anthonio's  son  and  Leonato's  'cousin'  and 
kinsman  (i.  2.  i ;  ii.  i.  i  s.-d.),  and  at  i.  i.  96  enters,  pro- 
perly enough,  as  a  mute;  and  that  in  ii.  i  Don  Pedro 
dances  with  Hero,  Benedick  with  Beatrice,  Balthaser  with 
Margaret,  and  Claudio,  otherwise  unpartnered,  with 
Ursula,  while  Don  John  and  Borachio  look  on.  But  Wilson 
supposes  that  old  inappropriate  stage-directions  have 
survived  from  an  earlier  version  from  Shakespeare's  hand, 
which  he  has  revised  by  abridging  the  verse  scenes  and 
turning  the  Benedick  and  Beatrice  matter  from  verse  into 
prose.  This  theory,  which  I  cannot  accept,  is  supported 
by  pointing  to  short  lines,  which  are  in  tact  few  and  not 
markedly  abrupt;  to  a  very  few  only  of  the  many  deca- 
syllabic rhvthms  which  the  Drose.  as  in  all  Shakesneare's 


Chap.  IX  MUCH  ADO  ABOUT  NOTHING  387 

plays  of  about  this  date  (cf.  p.  233),  contains;  to  two 
possible  but  not  certain  traces  of  alteration  in  particular 
passages  (iv.  i.  157-60;  v.  i.  106-8);  to  features  of  style, 
such  as  quatrains,  'reminiscent  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  and 
Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona^  which  need  mean  no  more  than 
that  Shakespeare  had  not  quite  abandoned  his  'lyrical' 
manner  in  comedy;  and  to  some  obscurities  as  to  the 
assignation  of  Borachio  and  Margaret,  which  are  in  part 
entailed  by  the  use  of  a  conventional  plot-motive,  and  after 
all,  as  Wilson  himself  says,  leave  the  business  'sufficient 
for  the  purpose'  of  the  stage,  although  it  provokes  inquiry 
in  the  study. 

The  date  of  Much  Ado  about  Nothing  is  pretty  closely 
fixed  to  the  winter  of  1598-9,  by  Kempe's  disappearance 
from  the  Chamberlain's  company  (cf.  p.  79)  early  in 
1599,  and  the  absence  of  the  play  from  Meres'  list 
(App.  B,  no.  xiii),  unless  indeed,  which  is  not  likely  (cf. 
p.  272),  it  is  Love  Labours  Won.  With  this  date  the 
evidence  of  the  style  is  consistent;  it  seems  to  me  to  be 
nearest  to  that  of  Merchant  of  Venice.  There  is  little  else 
to  take  account  of.  Sarrazin's  suggestion  that  the  love- 
stories  reflect  those  of  the  Earls  of  Southampton  and  Rut- 
land may  safely  be  disregarded.  The  passage  (iii.  i .  9)  on — 

favourites 

Made  proud  by  princes,  that  advance  their  pride 
Against  that  power  that  bred  it: 

has  been  compared  with  the  arrogance  of  the  Earl  of  Essex 
to  Elizabeth  about  July  1598 ;  but  such  a  topical  allusion 
would  be  very  dangerous,  and  the  observation  may  be 
quite  general.  There  was  a  Jacobean  revival  in  1612-13 
(App.  D),  and  an  allusion  by  Digges  (App.  B,  no.  Iii)  shows 
that  the  play  still  held  the  stage  about  1640. 

The  main  theme,  of  a  lover  deceived  by  an  impersona- 
tion of  his  mistress,  has  been  traced  back  to  the  Greek 
Chaereas  and  Kallirrhoe  of  Chariton  (c.  400).  Less  remote 
sources  were  available  in  the  story  of  Timbreo  and  Fenicia, 
as  given  in  Matteo  Bandello's  Novelle  (1554),  xxii,  and 
translated  therefrom  in  F,  de  Belleforest's  Histoires  Tra- 


ce 


388  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

giqueS)  iii  (1569),  and  in  that  of  Ariodante  and  Genevra  in 
Ariosto's  Orlando  Furioso  (1516),  canto  v.  Probably  both 
were  drawn  upon,  since  Belleforest  has  the  names  of  Peter 
of  Arragon  and  Leonato  and  Messina  as  the  locality,  but 
does  not,  like  Ariosto,  make  the  heroine's  waiting-maid 
the  decoy.  The  Orlando  was  translated  by  Sir  John 
Harington  in  1591,  but  there  had  been  earlier  versions  of 
the  Ariodante  story,  which  was  used  by  Spenser  in  the 
Faerie  Queene  (1590),  ii.  4,  and  presumably  in  the  Ario- 
dante and  Genevora  given  at  court  by  the  Merchant 
Taylors'  boys  in  158 3.1  It  has  been  thought  that  the 
title  Panecia  of  a  play,  rehearsed  and  probably  given  by 
Leicester's  men  in  1574,  may  be  an  error  for  Fenicia,  and 
that  Bandello's  story  may  have  then  been  dramatized.2 
Bandello  was  also  the  main  source  of  Jacob  Ayrer's  Die 
Schdne  Phdnicia  (c.  1595),  printed  in  his  Opus  Theatricum 
(1618).  Ayrer  was  not  uninfluenced  by  the  plays  of 
English  travelling  companies,  but  no  dramatic  link  be- 
tween this  piece  and  Shakespeare's  has  been  established. 
It  has  been  suggested  that  the  wit-combats  of  Benedick 
and  Beatrice  may  have  been  inspired  by  those  of  Gaspare 
Pallavicino  and  Emilia  Pia  in  Baldassare  Castiglione's  // 
Cortegiano  (1528),  translated  by  Sir  Thomas  Hoby  in 
1561.  Aubrey  (App.  C,  no.  xiii)  says  that  Shakespeare 
picked  up  the  humour  of  the  constables  in  journeying  from 
Stratford  to  London  through  Grendon  in  Bucks,  although 
this  is  a  little  off  the  direct  road. 


XVIII.    HENRY  THE  FIFTH 
[S.R.  1600?] 

4  August! 

•        •        *        .         •   i 

Henry  the  ffift,  a  booke  \  to  be  staled  (Arber,  iii.  37). 

•  •  *  •  .1 

[On  the  significance  of  this  entry,  c£  p.  145.] 

[Qi.  1600.]  The  Chronicle  History  of  Henry  the  fift, 

1  Efa.  Stage,  iv.  159.  a  ibid.  iv.  149. 


Chap.  IX  HENRY  THE  FIFTH  389 

With  his  battel  fought  at  Agin  Court  in  France.  Togither 
with  Auntient  Pistoll.  As  it  hath  bene  sundry  times 
playd  by  the  Right  honorable  the  Lord  Chamberlaine  his 
seruants.  [Creede's  device  (McKerrow  299)]  London 
Printed  by  Thomas  Creede,  for  Tho.  Millington,  and 
lohn  Busby.  And  are  to  be  sold  at  his  house  in  Carter 
Lane,  next  the  Powle  head.  1600.  [Head-title]  The 
Chronicle  Historic  of  Henry  the  fift:  with  his  battel  fought 
at  Agin  Court  in  France.  Togither  with  Auncient  Pistoll, 
[Running-title]  The  Chronicle  Historic  of  Henry  the  fift. 
facsimile.  C.  Praetorius  (i  886,  Sh.  Q.  xxvii,  ed.  A.  Symons). 
Reprints.  B.  Nicholson  (1875,  N.S.S.);  W.  A.  Wright  (1893, 
Cambridge  Sh.  ix.  461). 

[S.R.  1600.]  14  Augusti.  Thomas  Pavyer.  Entredforhis 
Copyes  by  Direction  of  master  White  warden  vndcr  his 
hand  wrytinge.  These  Copyes  followinge  beinge  thinges 
formerlye  printed  and  sett  over  to  the  sayd  Thomas 
Pavyer.  viz.  .  .  .  The  historye  of  Henry  the  Vth  with  the 
battell  of  Agencourt  vjd  .  . .  (Arber,  iii.  169). 

[Q2.  1602.]  The  Chronicle  History  of  Henry  the  fift, 
With  his  battell  fought  at  Agin  Court  in  France.  To- 
gether with  Auntient  Pistoll.  As  it  hath  bene  sundry  times 
playd  by  the  Right  honorable  the  Lord  Chamberlaine  his 
seruants.  [Creede's  device  (McKerrow  299)]  London 
Printed  by  Thomas  Creede,  for  Thomas  Pauier,  and  are 
to  be  sold  at  his  shop  in  Cornhill,  at  the  signe  of  the  Cat 
and  Parrets  neare  the  Exchange.  1602.  [Bead-title]  The 
Chronicle  Historic  of  Henry  the  fift:  with  his  battel  fought 
at  Agin  Court  in  France.  Togither  with  Ancient  Pistoll. 
[Running-title']  The  Chronicle  Historic  of  Henry  the  fift. 

[Q3-  1619.]  [Ornament]  The  Chronicle  History  of 
Henry  the  fift,  with  his  battell  fought  at  Agin  Court  in 
France.  Together  with  ancient  Pistoll.  As  it  hath  bene 
sundry  times  playd  by  the  Right  Honourable  the  Lord 
Chamberlaine  his  Seruants.  [William  Jaggard's  device 
(McKerrow  283)]  Printed  for  T(homas)  P(avier)  1608. 
[Head-title']  The  Chronicle  Historic  of  Henry  the  fift:  with 
his  battell  fought  at  Agin  Court  in  France.  Togither  with 


39o  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

Ancient  Pistoll.  [Running-title-]  The  Chronicle  History  of 
Henry  the  fift. 
[On  the  misdating,  cf.  p.  1 33.] 

Facsimile.    C.  Praetorius  (1886,  Sh.  Q.  xxviii,  ed.  A.  Symons). 
[Fi.  1623.]  [Catalogue-]  The  Life  of  King  Henry  the  Fift. 
[Histories,  pp.  69  ta-95  ins,  sign,  h-k  2.   Head-  and  Run- 
ning-titles-] The  Life  of  Henry  the  Fift. 
[Acts  i,  sc.  i,  ii-v  marked  (altered  in  modern  eds.).] 
Parallel-Texts.  B.  Nicholson  and  P.  A.  Daniel  (1877,  N.S.S.); 
H.  P.  StokesfiSga,  Bankside);  E.  Roman  (1908). 
Modern  Editions.   W.  G.  Boswell-Stone  (1880,  N.S.S.);  G.  C. 
Moore  Smith  (1896,  Warwick);   H.  A.  Evans  (1903,  Jrden); 
R.D.French(i9i8,r<7/-0. 

Dissertations.  B.  Nicholson,  The  Relation  of  the  Q  «  the  F  of  Hen .  7 
(1870  NS.S.  Traas.77);  G.Sarrazin,JVyw  undSenJotuon(\y>ip7.^. 

*12)?LDW^^ 

Hi  i  3, 241);  J-  Le  G.Brereton,  BL's  Wild  Irishman  (1917,  ML.R  ru. 
«oV  AW  Pollard  and  J.  D.  Wilson,  The  'Stolne  and  Surreptitious1  Shn. 
L5  '-'  "M>(i9io,  Mar.  13,  T.L.S.-);  K.T.  Pri«-  The  Text  of  Hen.  7 


E.  M.  Albright,  W»  F  /V»to  «/ft 
PJtfX^.iliii.722)- 
Fi  is  a  fairly  regular  text,  with  few  mislineations,  except 
that  Pistol's  bombastic  verse,  occurring  in  prose  scenes,  is 
printed  as  prose.  Editors  have  adopted  a  good  many 
emendations;  in  the  French  and  dialectic  passages  it  is  not 
always  clear  whether  an  error  is  a  misprint  or  an  intended 
blunder  by  a  speaker.  The  stage-directions  are  normal. 
There  are  some  summarized  entries  for  crowded  scenes, 
and  some  musical  notes.  They  may  represent  prompt- 
copy,  contributed  to  by  author  and  book-keeper. 

Qa  and  Qs  were  probably  set  up  independently  from 
Qi,  since  £3  reverts  to  many  Qi  readings  altered  by  Q2. 
The  common  divergences  of  Q2  and  Q3  from  Qi  are 
limited  to  corrections  of  obvious  misprints,  with  one  or 
two  possible  exceptions  which  may  be  accidental  agree- 
ments in  conjectural  amendment.  Greg,  Emendation,  41, 
45,  notes  that  Q3,  like  the  Contention  of  1619,  seems 
occasionally  to  anticipate  a  reading  of  Fi . 


Chap.  IX  HENRY  THE  FIFTH  391 

If  Qi  is  read  side  by  side  with  Fi,  it  is  impossible  to 
regard  it  as  anything  but  a  continual  perversion  of  the 
same  text.    Some  of  the  verse-lines  are  truly  rendered; 
others  contain  words  related  to  those  of  Fi  as  variants  of 
inflexion  or  indifferent  alternatives,  or  words  which  read 
like  mishearings.  Many  phrases  are  omitted,  resulting  in 
mislineations.  Line  after  line  is  bungled  metrically,  by  a 
writer  incapable  of  handling  blank  verse.    Larger  omis- 
sions cause  lacunae  in  the  sense.    Sometimes  Q  gives  a 
mere  paraphrase  of  the  substance  of  F.  The  prose  scenes 
are  even  more  fragmentary,  and  are  throughout  in  lines  of 
irregular  length  and  capitalized  as  verse.  As  a  paradoxical 
result,  Pistol's  speeches  resume  verse  form.    There  are 
some  transpositions  in  the  order  of  the  dialogue,  especially 
in  the  prose  scenes.  Two  scenes  (iv,  4,  5)  change  places. 
One  passage,  at  the  end  of  iii.  7,  appears  in  F  at  iv.  2. 
62-3.  There  is  at  least  one  phrase,  at  the  end  of  ii.  3,  of 
indecent  'gag'.  This  corruption  is  far  beyond  what  can  be 
attributed  to  errors  of  transcription  and  printing,  and  can 
only  be  explained  by  some  process  of  reporting.    It  in 
certain  respects  differs  from  that  to  be  observed  in 
Henry  VI>  Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  Hamlet.   There  is  no 
introduction  of  un-Shakespearean  verse;  practically  every- 
thing is  related  to  F.   Price  has  argued  for  the  use  of 
shorthand,  but  mainly  on  grounds,  such  as  the  mishear- 
ings and  alternatives,  which  do  not  (cf.  p.  157)  exclude 
memorization.  Some  unevenness  of  demerit  suggests  that 
the  reporter  may  have  been  an  actor.  The  best-rendered 
scenes  are  those  in  which  Exeter,  Gower,  and  the  Governor 
of  Harfleur  appear.  Conceivably  the  'part'  of  one  or  more 
of  these  may  have  been  available,  and  conceivably^  'plot', 
since  a  few  marginal  notes  for  action  (ii.  I.  103;  iv.  8.  9; 
v.  i .  30)  are  common  to  Qi  and  F.  But  if  so  it  was  a  very 
skeleton  one.   The  Q  stage-directions  are  even  slighter 
than  those  of  F,    There  are  no  long  descriptive  stage- 
directions  comparable  to  those  in  Qi  of  Romeo  and  Juliet. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  omissions  of  Q  point  to  a  per- 
formance for  which  much  of  the  F  text  had  been  'cut'. 
It  is  hardly  possible  to  distinguish  short  cuts  from  the 


392  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

reporter's  lapses,  but  there  is  no  representation  at  all  in 
Q  of  the  prologue,  the  four  other  choruses,  and  the  epi- 
logue; or  of  three  scenes  (i,  i ;  iii.  I ;  iv.  2);  or  of  sub- 
stantial passages  (e.g.  i,  2.  115-35;  ii.  2.  105-42;  iii.  2. 
&9-1 53  •  &•  3-  I  I-4* ;  &•  £•  27-68 ;  iii.  7.  140-69;  iv.  i. 
1-34,   118-39,  247-301;  v.  2.  307-58,  387-400)  in 
others.    Cutting  may  be  estimated  to  have  reduced  the 
3,381  lines  of  the  play  by  about  1,000,  making  a  per- 
formance in  two  instead  of  three  hours  possible.  Eleven 
speaking  parts  are  saved  by  the  process,  and  this  may  point 
to  a  provincial  performance.   Some  good  Shakespearean 
matter  goes,  but  it  is  of  poetic  rather  than  dramatic  value. 
In  any  case  compression  in  the  basis  of  the  Q  text  is  more 
plausible  than  expansion  for  that  of  F,  and  there  are  ana- 
logies in  the  theatrical  treatment  of  other  long  plays  (cf. 
p.  229).  The  attempts  of  Nicholson  and  Craig  to  trace 
a  literary  revision  fail  to  appreciate  sufficiently  the  extent 
and  nature  of  the  Q  corruption.  As  in  other  reported  texts 
it  entails  vulgarization.    And  the  historical  corrections 
attributed  to  Q  by  Daniel  are  also  illusory.  It  is  true  that, 
while  F  is  in  general  closer  to  Holinshed  than  Q,  its  intro- 
duction of  the  Dauphin  at  Agincourt  is  a  departure, 
inconsistent  with  the  King's  order  (iii.  5.  64)  for  him 
to  stay  at  Rouen,  whereas  Q  leaves  him  out  at  Agincourt 
and  gives  his  speeches  there  to  Bourbon,  But  the  incon- 
sistency is  nothing  to  Shakespeare;  the  Dauphin  must 
come  into  dramatic  conflict  with  Henry;  and  I  can  only 
suppose  that  the  reporter  has  failed  to  disentangle  the 
French  lords.  He  also  brings  in  among  them  (iii.  7 ;  iv.  5), 
apparently  for  the  Rambures  of  F,  a  Gebon,  possibly  an 
actor's  name.    Price  suggests  a  corruption  of  that  of 
Samuel  Gilburne,  or  less  plausibly  a  Thomas  Gibborne, 
only  known  as  a  Fortune  'housekeeper'  in  1624.!  Prob- 
ably the  only  change  in  F  from  the  original  text  was  the 
very  incomplete  excision  of  profanity.    That  it  is  un- 
abashed in  the  rather  pointless  episode  (iii.  2.  69-153)  of 
the  English,  Scottish,  Irish,  and  Welsh  captains,  which  is 
not  in  Q,  tells  against  the  suggestion  that  this  is  an  inter- 

1  Murray,  i.  214. 


Chap.  IX  HENRY  THE  FIFTH  393 

polation  motived  by  the  Jacobean  policy  of  a  union  of 
kingdoms.  But  although  it  is  not  altogether  appropriate 
to  Elizabethan  conditions,  Holinshed  does  in  fact  give 
Henry  Scottish  mercenaries.  Moreover,  while  Captain 
Jamy  is  not  unsympathetically  drawn,  would  the  king  have 
altogether  approved  the  selection  of  the  name  for  a  comic 
character?  An  alternative  and  perhaps  more  plausible  con- 
jecture is  that  the  passage  was  censored  in  1599,  because 
of  earlier  offence  given  to  James  by  theatrical  references 
to  Scotland.1  If  so,  we  cannot  suppose  that  it  was  restored 
when  he  saw  the  play  on  7  January  1 605  (App.  D),  but  the  F 
printer  may,  quite  properly,  have  ignored  a  deletion  mark. 

The  omission  or  the  choric  matter  from  Q  may  be  only 
part  of  the  abridgement,  but  it  is  also  possible  that -the 
performances  reported  took  place  after  the  unsuccessful 
return  of  Essex  from  Ireland  on  28  September  1599  made 
the  reference  to  him  in  the  chorus  before  Act  v  unsuitable. 
The  last  two  lines  of  that  to  Act  ii  must  be  an  afterthought, 
intended  to  correct  the  suggestion  of  34-5  that  the  locality 
at  once  shifted  to  Southampton.  This  may  be  due  to  the 
Folio  editor,  who  may  have  had  the  choruses  on  loose 
scrolls,  and  should  have  inserted  this  one  and  begun  Act  ii 
a  scene  later.  In  fact  his  supplementary  lines  probably  re- 
placed an  act  heading  already  set  up,  and  he  then  put  in  Acts 
ii  and  iii  where  Acts  iii  and  iv  should  be,  and  an  Act  iv,  for 
which  he  had  no  chorus  left,  at  random.  'Topical'  specula- 
tion reaches  its  maximum  of  absurdity  in  Miss  Albright's 
suggestion  that  the  choruses  belong  to  a  special  perform- 
ance given  at  the  Globe  to  further  the  interests  of  the 
Essex  conspiracy  and  that  the  phrase  'bringing  rebellion 
broached  on  his  sword'  was  meant  to  foretell  a  return  to 
broach  the  cask  of  rebellion. 

A  double  Shakespearean  handling  is  an  element  in  Pol- 
lard and  Wilson's  interpretation  of  Qi  as  one  of  a  group 
of  old  plays  (cf.  p.  226),  partly  revised  by  Shakespeare, 
and  then  transcribed  in  an  abridged  form  for  provincial 
use  in  1593,  and  finally  printed  partly  from  this  transcript 
and  partly  from  an  actor's  report  of  a  performance  of  the 

1  Eliz.  Stage,  i.  323. 


394  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

play  as  further  revised  by  Shakespeare  on  the  original 
manuscript.  As  in  other  plays  of  the  group,  a  meticulous 
substitution  of  colourless  equivalents  is  entailed.  Pollard 
and  Wilson's  study  is  based  mainly  upon  an  examination 
of  Act  ii.  In  the  verse  scenes  they  take  the  metrical  lines 
as  derived  from  the  transcript  and  the  bungled  lines  as 
attempts  of  the  reporter  to  fill  the  gaps.  The  metrical  or 
tolerably  metrical  lines  amount,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  to 
about  500  for  the  whole  play,  and  would  give  a  very 
sketchy  outline  of  the  plot,  with  many  solutions  of  con- 
tinuity in  the  dialogue.  But  I  suppose  that  Pollard,  and 
Wilson  think  that  this  would  be  good  enough  for  a  pro- 
vincial audience.  Surely,  however,  they  give  an  obviously 
illiterate  reporter  an  impossible  task,  in  going  through  an 
apparently  complete  manuscript  and  determining,  as  he 
must  have  done  with  considerable  accuracy,  the  exact 
points  at  which  expansion  from  a  very  imperfect  memory 
of  the  later  version  was  required.  There  must  of  course 
have  been  more  than  500  lines  in  the  provincial  play,  but 
I  understand  the  theory  to  be  that  for  certain  scenes  the 
transcript  was  entirely  abandoned  and  a  report  of  Shake- 
speare's later  prose  scenes  substituted.  It  is  suggested  that 
in  these  scenes  the  reporter  played  either  Bardolph  or 
Mrs.  Quickly,  but  surely  neither  part  is  consistently  well 
reproduced.  The  original  play  rehandled  by  Shakespeare 
is  taken  to  have  been  itself  a  revision  of  the  Famous 
Victories  (cf.  s.v.  Hen.  IF),  and  to  have  left  traces  in  the 
choruses  and  historical  scenes  of  the  F  text. 

This  intermediate1  Henry  V  is  also  assumed  by  Robert- 
son, as  a  play  written  about  1590  by  Marlowe,  probably 
with  the  collaboration  of  Peele  and  Greene,  if  not  also  of 
Kyd;  revised  for  the  Admiral's  in  1 595,  probably  by  Peele, 
although  Munday,  Chettle,  Heywood,  Drayton,  and 
Dekker  are  also  conceivable;  revived  with  comic  relief  by 
Chapman;  transferred  by  the  Admiral's  to  the  Chamber- 
lain's; and  finally  revised  by  Shakespeare  and  perhaps 
Chettle,  Such  a  string  of  hypotheses,  involving  the  pos- 
sible interaction  of  about  a  dozen  writers  at  five  stages  is 
of  course  incapable  of  demonstration  and  would  not  repay 


Chap.  IX  HENRY  THE  FIFTH  395 

systematic  refutation.  An  example  of  Robertson's  method 
is  to  be  found  in  the  suggestion  that  the  reference  to  Essex 
may  in  an  earlier  version  have  been  to  some  other  episode 
in  his  career,  such  as  his  expedition  to  France  in  1591. 
So  far  as  Marlowe  is  concerned,  the  attempt  to  find  his 
hand  here  is  less  plausible  even  than  Robertson's  attempt 
to  find  him  in  Richard  II \  and  the  'clues'  of  supposed  un- 
Shakespearean  words  and  phrases  are  extraordinarily  thin. 
Shakespeare's  historical  source  is  again  mainly  Holins- 
hed,  and  for  anything  borrowed  from  the  later  scenes  of 
Famous  Victories  it  is  not  necessary  to  look  further  than  the 
version  left  to  us,  which  had  become  available  in  the  1598 
edition,  even  if  there  was  (cf.  p.  383)  no  earlier  one. 
I  think  we  must  take  the  'Ireland'  of  the  chorus  as  meaning 
'Ireland',  and  therefore  as  datable  between  Essex's  de- 
parture thither  on  27  March  1599  and  his  return  on 
September  28.   Nor  do  I  see  sufficient  reason  for  sup- 
posing the  choruses  to  be  of  different  date  to  the  play  as 
a  whole.  They  are  naturally  written  in  a  somewhat  arti- 
ficial and  old-fashioned  manner.   The  metrical  tests,  for 
what  they  are  worth,  consist  well  enough  with  1599,  and 
the  play  must  of  course  follow  the  promise  in  the  epilogue 
to  2  Henry  17  to  'continue  the  story,  with  Sir  John  in  it, 
and  make  you  merry  with  fair  Katharine  of  France :  where, 
for  any  thing  I  know,  Falstaff  shall  die  of  a  sweat'.   It  is 
true  that  the  general  literary  quality  does  not  show  any 
marked  advance  upon  Henry  IV  itself.    One  may  even 
trace  a  reversion,  in  spite  of  some  fine  rhetorical  passages, 
to  a  more  traditional  way  of  handling  chronicle  matter, 
there  less  conspicuous.  Perhaps  Shakespeare  was  again,  as 
in  Richard  //,  imperfectly  interested  in  epic  themes.  Nor 
are  the  added  'humorists'  quite  on  the  level  of  their  pre- 
decessors. Wilson  has  made  a  fair  case  for  finding  traits  of 
the  Welsh  soldier  Sir  Roger  Williams  in  Fluellen;  and 
Sarrazin  for  regarding  Nym,  with  his  jerky  style  and 
constant  repetition  of  the  word  'humour',  as  a  satire  of  Ben 
Jonson's  early  dramatic  manner;  although  I  do  not  think 
(cf.  p.  72)  that  it  is  the  'purge'  which  Shakespeare  is  said  to 
have  given  him.   Jonson's  prologue  to  EMJ.  (App.  B, 


396  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

no.  xxii),  probably  of  later  date  than  the  play  itself,  in  turn 
satirizes  the  chorus  wafting  the  action  overseas.  The 
names  of  William  Fluellen  and  George  Bardolfe  appear  as 
those  of  fellow  recusants  (cf.  p.  25)  with  John  Shake- 
speare in  1592.  Those  of  Bate,  Court,  and  Williams  are 
also  found  (French  327)  in  Stratford  records. 

XIX.  JULIUS  CAESAR 

[Fi.  1623.]    [Catalogue]   The  Life  and  death  of  Julius 
Caesar.     [Tragedies^  pp.  109-30,  sign.  kk-ll5v.    Head- 
and  Running-Titles]  The  Tragedie  of  Julius  Caesar. 
[Acts  i,  sc  i,  ii-v  marked.] 
Facsimile.  ].  D.  Wilson  (1929). 

Modern  Editions.  A.  D.  Innes  (1893,  Warwick}\  M.  Hunter 
(1900),  F.  H.  Sykes  (1909);  M.  Macmillan  (1902,  Arden}\  H.  H. 
Furness  (1913,  New  Variorum}\  L.  Mason  (1919,  Tale). 
Dissertations.  F.  G.  Fleay,  J.C.  (1874,  N.S.S.  Trans.  357;  Sh.  Manual, 
262);  N.  Delius,  Shs  J.C.  und  seine  Quellen  in  Plutarch  (1882,  J.  xvii. 
67;  Abl.\\.  153);  P.  Simpson,  The  Date  ofSh.'s  J.C.  (1899,9  AT.Q.iii. 
105,  216);  E.  Koeppel,  Shs  J.C.  und  die  Entstehungszeit  des  anonymen 
Dramen  The  Wisdom  of  Dr.  Dodypoll  (1907,  J.  xliii.  210);  P.  Kannen- 
giesser,  Eine  Doppelredaktion  in  Shs  J.C.  (1908,  J.  xliv.  51);  W.  Keller, 
Zwei  Bemerkungen  zu  J.C.  (1909,  J.  xlv.  219);  M.  W.  MacCallum, 
Sh.'s  Roman  Plays  and  their  Background  ( 1 9 1  o) ;  H.  M.  Ayres,  Sh.'sJ.C.  in 
the  Light  of  Some  Other Versions {1910,  PJfJL^t.m.  183);  H.  C.  Bartlett, 
Quarto  Editions  of  J.C.  (1913,  3  Library,  iv.  122);  G.  Sarrazin,  Sh.  und 
Orlando  Pescetti  (1913,  E.S.  xlvi.  347);  A.  Boecker,  A  Probable  Italian 
Source  of  Sh.'s  J.C.  (1913);  A.  Kerrl,  Die  metrischen  Unterschiede  von 
Shs  K.J.  und  J.C.  (1913);  A.  de  V.  Tassin,  J.C.  (1916,  Columbia 
Studies,  255);  J.  M,  Robertson,  The  Origination  of  J.C.  (1922,  Sh. 
Canon,i.66)i  W. Wells,  TAr Authorship  of 'J.C. (1923);  M. H. Shackford, 
J.C.  and  Ovid (1926,  M.LJT.  xli.  172);  F.  Wolcken,  Shs  J.C.  undMar- 
lowes  Massacre  at  Paris  (1927,  J.  kiii.  192);  E.  H.  C.  Oliphant,  J.C. 
(1927,  The  Plays  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  316),  E.  *WF.  (192  8,  Feb.  2  3, 
T.L.S.). 

Julius  Caesar  is  one  of  the  best  printed  of  the  F  additions, 
with  only  trifling  dislocations.  The  stage-directions  are 
normal.  The^  spellings  Antony,  and  occasionally  in  early 
scenes  Antonio,  diverge  from  the  Anthony  regularly  used 
by  Shakespeare  elsewhere.  There  is  a  trace  of  a  revision  in 
iv,  3,  not  necessarily  more  than  an  afterthought  at  the 


Chap.  IX  JULIUS  CAESAR  397 

time  of  composition.  Brutus  and  Cassius  discuss  (143- 
58,  1 66)  Portia's  death.  Thereafter  (181-95)  Messala 
announces  that  death  to  Brutus,  who  is  apparently  ignorant 
of  it.  Probably  the  first  passage  is  an  insertion,  and  the 
second  has  been  left  undeleted  or  imperfectly  deleted  in 
the  manuscript.  The  play  is  a  very  short  one,  and  a  few 
abrupt  short  lines  may  be  evidence  of  cuts. 

The  date  of  production  can  be  fairly  definitely  fixed  by 
Platter's  visit  (App.  D)  to  a  Julius  Caesar  play  on  21 
September  1599.  He  does  not  name  the  Globe,  but  the 
theatre  was  south  of  the  river,  and  the  Swan  was  probably 
not  in  regular  use.1  The  Rose  no  doubt  was,  but  as  the 
Admiral's  had  new  Caesar  plays  (cf.  infra)  in  1 594—5  and 
again  in  1 602,  they  are  not  very  likely  to  have  been  staging 
one  in  1599.  Platter's  'at  least  fifteen  characters'  agrees 
fairly  with  Julius  Caesar,  on  the  assumption  that  he  dis- 
regarded a  number  of  inconspicuous  parts.  The  date  of 
1599  fits  in  well  with  other  evidence.  Weever  clearly 
refers  to  the  play  in  his  Mirror  of  Martyrs  (App.  B,  no. 
xix),  which  he  says  was  fit  for  the  print  two  years  before 
1 60 1,  even  though  it  may  have  been  added  to  in  the  inter- 
val. There  is  an  obvious  quotation  of  iii.  2.  109  in  Jon- 
son's  E.M.O.  (iS99\  0"-  4-  33X  'Reason  long  since  is 
fled  to  animals,  you  know',  as  well  as  a  less  indicative 
repetition  (v.  6.  79)  of  'Et  tu  Brute'  (iii.  i.  77).  The  Wis- 
dom of  Dr.  Dodipoll^  printed  in  1 6oo,2  also  quotes  iii.  2. 109, 
.and  'Et  tu  Brute'  is  in  S.  Nicholson's  Acolastus  his  Afterwit 
(1600).  On  the  other  hand,  if  there  are  echoes  in  iii.  i. 
113  of  Daniel's  Musophilus  and  in  i.  2.  52  of  Sir  John 
Davies's  Nosce  Teipsum,  these  were  registered  on  9  January 
and  14  April  1599  respectively.  The  play  held  the  stage 
in  the  seventeenth  century.  Court  performances  are 
recorded  (App.  D)  ih  1612-13, 1636,  and  1638. 

Jonson  tells  us  (App.  B,  no.  xxii)  that  iii.  1.47  origin- 
ally ran — 

Caesar  did  never  wrong,  but  with  just  cause, 

and  glances  at  the  same  passage  in  Staple  of  News  (1626), 
ind.  36,  'Cry you  mercy,  you  neuer  did  wrong,  but  with  iust 

*  Cf.  EKx.  Stage,  ii.  413.  *  Ibid.  iv.  54. 


398  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

cause*.  Incidentally  Jonson  gives  testimony,  if  that  were 

needed,  to  Shakespeare's  authorship  of  the  play;  and  so 

does  Digges  (App.  B,  no.  Hi)  in  1640.  Yet  in  no  play  of 

the  canon  have  recent  critics  more  persistently  sought 

other  hands.    Fleay  regarded  it  as  an  abridgement  of 

Shakespeare's  work,  due  to  Jonson  himself.  Abridged  it 

may  be,  but  the  evidence  produced  for  any  incorporation  of 

Jonsonian  matter,  unless  he  suggested  an  alternative  for 

iii.  i.  47,  is  negligible.  Robertson,  Wells,  and  Oliphant  all 

find  a  considerable  substratum  of  Marlowe.   Thereafter 

they  diverge.  Robertson  supposes  that  Marlowe,  perhaps 

with  Kyd,  although  he  only  hints  (i.  1 15)  at  this,  wrote 

a  play  in  three  parts,  dealing  successively  with  the  struggle 

of  Caesar  and  Pompey,  with  Caesar's  death,  and  with 

Philippu  Part  i  was  revived  by  the  Admiral's  as  Caesar 

and  Pompey  in  1 594, x  and  Part  2,  revised  by  Chapman  and 

Dray  ton  and  perhaps  (i.  142)  Heywood,  as  the  second 

part  of  Caesar  in  I595*2    Part  3  was  revised  as  Caesar's 

Fall  or  The  Two  Shapes,  also  for  the  Admiral's,   by 

Drayton,  Dekker,  Middleton,  Munday,  and  Webster  in 

1602,  although  of  this  Robertson  does  not  seem  very 

certain,  and  he  makes  no  attempt  to  trace  any  of  these 

writers  except  Drayton  in  Julius  Caesar  as  we  have  it.3 

However,  Part  i  was  then  laid  aside,  until  Chapman 

handled  it  in  his  Caesar  and  Pompey^  while  Parts  ii  and  iii 

were  transferred  by  the  Admiral's  to  the  Chamberlain's, 

and  revised  by  Shakespeare  about  1 603.   It  may  be  noted 

that  such  a  transference  between  rival  companies  is  far 

from  plausible,  and  also  that  Robertson  is  not  accurate  in 

stating  that  Henslowe  does  not  record  the  plays  of  1594 

and  1595  as  *ne'.  The  writers  of  1602  also  got  full  value 

for  a  new  play.  Finally,  according  to  Robertson,  Jonson 

compressed  Parts  2  and  3  into  the  present  form  of  Julius 

Caesar  either  about  1607  or  after  Shakespeare's  death. 

Wells  thinks  that  a  play,  apparently  a  single  play,  by 

Marlowe  was  given  for  revision  to  Shakespeare,  who 

abandoned  it  after  completing  the  first  57  lines,  and  that 

1  Etix.  Stage,  ii.  143.  3  Ibid.  ii.  179. 

2  Ibid.  ii.  144.  4  Ibid.  iii.  259. 


Chap.  IX  JULIUS  CAESAR  399 

the  rest  of  Julius  Caesar  is  a  revision  by  Beaumont,  who 
disregarded  Shakespeare's  opening,  slid  the  triumph  into 
the  feast  of  Lupercalia,  and  made  no  further  use  of  the 
tribunes  and  their  mob.  Oliphant  is  surprised  that  Wells 
should  find  Beaumont's  hand  continuously  throughout  the 
play,  and  would  reduce  his  share,  if  any,  to  little  more  than 
portions  of  iv.  3,  regarding  the  rest  as  the  work  of  an  early 
writer,  probably  Marlowe,  revised  by  Shakespeare.  These 
conflicting  theories  may  perhaps  be  left  to  cancel  each 
other  out.  I  believe  them  to  be  all  equally  misconceived, 
and  to  rest  partly  upon  characteristic  Shakespearean 
inconsistencies  in  the  handling  of  detail,  and  partly  upon 
two  special  features  of  the  play.   One  is  that,  while  Shake- 
speare's later  tragedies  move  in  a  single  curve  to  a  catas- 
trophe in  the  death  of  the  title-character,  the  action  of 
Julius  Caesar  has  two  peaks,  one  in  the  Capitol  and  the 
other  at  Philippi,  and  the  psychological  interest  is  at  least 
as  much  in  Brutus  as  in  Caesar.  The  effect  of  a  double 
theme  is  therefore  given.  The  other  is  that  Shakespeare 
is  deliberately  experimenting  in  a  classical  manner,  with 
an  extreme  simplicity  both  of  vocabulary  and  of  phrasing. 
This  has  already  been  noted  by  Bradley,  Shakespearean 
Tragedy,  85.  It  is  often  admirably  telling,  but  sometimes 
it  leads  to  a  stiffness,  perhaps  even  a  baldness,  of  diction, 
which  may  awake  reminiscences  of  pre-Shakespearean 
plays,  I  do  not  see  any  special  resemblance  to  Marlowe; 
the  constant  use  of  mid-line  speech  endings  and  mid-line 
pauses  is  not  pre-Shakespearean  at  all.  As  for  Beaumont, 
it  is  merely  a  matter  of  verbal  parallels,  and  the  derivation 
of  Beaumont's  diction  from  Shakespeare's  has  long  been 
recognized.  The  element  of  simple  dignity  in  the  style  of 
Julius  Caesar,  although  we  have  no  particular  reason  to 
suppose  that  he  knew  it  otherwise  than  on  the  stage, 
seems  to  have  made  a  special  appeal  to  him. 

Of  course  there  were  Elizabethan  plays  on  the  Caesar 
story  before  Shakespeare's,  and  before  those  which  Hens- 
lowe  records.  It  was  a  favourite  Renaissance  subject. 
Marc  Antoine  Muret's  Latin  Julius  Caesar  (1544)  had 
been  followed  by  Jacques  Grain's  Cesar  (1561)  and 


400  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

Robert  Gamier 's  Cornelie  (1574))  of  which  a  translation  by 
Kyd  appeared  in  1594.*  An  entry  in  Machyn's  Diary ', 
which  may  record  an  English  play  as  early  as  1 562,  seems 
to  be  in  part  a  forgery.2  The  Paul's  boys  played  a 
Pompey  at  court  in  i^Si,3  and  Gosson  notes  a  Caesar  and 
Pompey,  possibly,  although  his  words  are  not  quite  clear, 
at  the  Theatre,  in  his  Plays  Confuted  of  1582.4  Richard 
Edes  produced  a  Latin  Caesar  Interfectus  at  Christ  Church 
in  1582,  of  which  the  epilogue  alone  survives.5  On  these 
or  others  many  early  literary  allusions,  some  of  which  lay 
special  stress  on  Caesar's  triumph,  may  rest,  although  by 
themselves  they  would  prove  no  more  than  a  knowledge  of 
the  classical  story.  They  are  particularly  numerous  in 
Shakespeare's  own  early  plays,  continue  to  Hamlet,  where 
there  are  three,  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well,  Measure  for 
Measure,  and  Othello,  and  then  disappear,  except  in  Corio- 
lanus  and  Cymbeline,  where  Caesar  is  historically  appro- 
priate, Shakespeare  had  purged  his  imagination  or  the 
theme.  There  are  several  also  in  Marlowe.  But  I  find 
nothing  to  indicate  that  Marlowe  ever  wrote  a  Caesar 
play.  Wells  quotes  Greene,  Orlando  Furioso,  457,  where 
Sacrepant — 

(like  to  Cassius) 

Sits  sadly  dumping,  ayming  Caesars  death, 

Yet  crying  Ave  to  his  Maiestie, 

combines  it  with  Greene's  Francescos  Fortunes,  where 
Cicero  says  to  Roscius,  'if  the  Cobler  hath  taught  thee  to 
say  Aue  Caesar,  disdain  not  thy  tutor',6  and  decides  that  the 
cobbler  must  be  Marlowe,  and  that  the  *  Aue  Caesar'  is  not 
from  Edward  III,  i.  1. 164,  but  from  a  play  by  Marlowe 
with  Cassius  in  it.  But  I  hope  to  have  shown  7  that  the 
cobbler  and  his  crow  who  cried  *  Ave  Caesar',  not  to  Julius 
but  Augustus  Caesar,  came,  like  Roscius,  from  Macrobius. 
More  interesting  are  the  passages  in  Marlowe's  Massacre 
at  Paris,  1 220, 1 246,  where  the  Guise  before  his  death  says 

1  Blix.  Stage*  Iii.  397.  5  Ibid.  iii.  309. 

*  Cf.  vol.  ii,  p.  386.  6  Ibid.  iv.  236. 

*  EHx.  Stage,  iv.  158.  7  Ibid.  i.  377. 


Chap.  IX  JULIUS  CAESAR  401 

of  himself,  'Yet  Caesar  shall  goe  forth',  and  again,  'Thus 
Caesar  did  go  foorth,  and  thus  he  dyed'.  The  first  phrase 
repeats  JuL  Caes.  ii.  2.  28.  Here  it  is  in  place,  and  Shake- 
speare's Caesar  habitually  speaks  of  himself  in  the  third 
person.  The  Massacre,  although  written  in  I593>  only 
exists  in  an  undated  edition,  possibly  as  late  as  1599.  It 
is  corrupt  and  may  have  an  element  of  'reporting'  in  it. 
Perhaps  this  brought  the  phrases  in.  But  even  if  Marlowe 
wrote  them,  and  took  them  from  an  earlier  play,  it  would 
not  prove  that  the  play  was  his,  still  less  that,  as  Wells 
thinks,  he  meant  Caesar  for  a  covert  representation  of  the 
Guise,  about  whom,  indeed,  he  showed  no  hesitation  in 
writing  openly. 

Shakespeare  mainly  derived  his  material  from  Plutarch's 
Lives  of  Brutus,  Caesar,  and  Antony,  as  translated  by 
Sir  Thomas  North  (1579)  from  the  French  (1559)  of 
Jacques  Amyot.  He  often  borrows  North's  actual  wording. 
Individual  passages  have  been  compared  with  others  in 
Lucan'sPA#rj£#0,  Cicero's  Letters,  Pliny's  Natural  History, 
Appian's  Civil  Wars,  Dion  Cassius's  dnnals,  Suetonius's 
Lives  of  the  Caesars,  and  Orlando  Pescetti's  //  Cesare 
(1594),  but  how  far  he  drew  directly  upon  these,  it  is 
difficult,  in  view  of  the  lost  earlier  English  plays,  to  say. 
The  famous  'Et  tu  Brute'  is  probably  in  its  origin  an 
adaptation  of  the  icol  ov,  rcWv  of  Suetonius*  It  has  only 
been  traced  once  in  English  literature  before  Julius  Caesar, 
in  the  True  Tragedy,  xxi.  53;  it  is  not  in  3  Hen.  VI,  v.  i. 
77-80,  of  which  the  passage  in  the  True  Tragedy  is  a  cor- 
ruption. A  play  of  Julius  Caesar  was  given  by  John 
Green's  company  at  Dresden  in  1626,*  It  may  or  may  not 
have  been  Shakespeare's. 

XX.   AS  YOU  LIKE  IT 
[S.R.  1600?] 

4  Augusti 
As  you  like  y*,  a  booked  to  be  staid 

/  (Arber,  iii.  37). 

[On  the  significance  of  this  entry,  cf.  p.  145.] 

1  Ibid.  ii.  286. 
ana.!  D  d 


4.02  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Cliap.  IX 

[F 1. 1623.]   [Catalogue]  As  you  Like  it.    [Comedies,  pp. 
185-207,  sign.  £3-82.    Head-title}    As  you  Like  it. 
[Running-title']  As  you  like  it. 
[Acts  and  sec.  marked.] 
Facsimile.  ].  D.  Wilson  (1929). 

Modern  Editions.  H.  H.  Furness  (1890,  New  Fariorum);  ].  W. 
Holme  (1914,  Arden}\  J.  R.  Crawford  (1919,  Yale}\  A.  T.  Quiller- 
Couch  and  J,  D.  Wilson  (1926,  C.U.P.). 

Dissertations.  N.  Delius,  Lodges  Rosatynde  und  Shs  A.Y.L.  (1871,  J9  vi. 
226;  Abl  i.  206) ;  W.  G.  Boswdl-Stone,  Sh.'s  A.r.L.  and  Lodge's  Rosalynde 
Compared  (1882,  N.S.S.  Trans.  277)5  J. Zupitza,  Die  mlttelenglische  For- 
stufe  zu  SAs  A.Y.L.  (1886,  J.  xxi,  69);  C.  H.  Herford,  Sh.'s  Masters  and 
A.Y.L.  (1890);  A.  H.  Thorndike,  The  Relation  0/A.Y.L.  to  Robin  Hood 
flays  (1902,  J.E.G.P.  iv.  59);  W.  W.  Greg,  Lodges  Rosalynde:  being  the 
Original of&hls  A.T.L.  (1907,  St.  Classics);  H.  Conrad,  Die  ErzaUung 
von  Gamelyn  als  Quelle  zu  SAs  A.YJL.  (1910,  J.  xlvi,  120);  A.  Grayf 
How  Sh.  *  Purged*  Jonson  (1928) ;  B.  H.  Newdigate,  Harington,  Jayues  and 
Touchstone  (1929,  Jan.  3, 10,  T.L.S.). 

F  is  a  fair  text,  with  only  small  typographical  disturbances, 
chiefly  due  to  rapid  transitions  between  verse  and  prose. 
The  stage-directions  are  slight,  and  only  occasionally  sug- 
gest the  hands  of  the  author  (iL  i.  I ;  ii.  4.  i ;  iii.  2.  131) 
and  the  book-keeper  (L  2. 1 58, 224, 227 ;  ii.  4.  i ;  ii.  5. 40; 
iv.  2. 1 1 ;  v.  5.  1 14).  Wilson  suggests,  without  elaborating 
the  point,  that  the  copy  may  have  been  assembled  from 
'parts'. 

The  entry  in  the  Stationers'  Register  and  the  absence 
of  the  play  from  Meres*  list  of  1598  give  limits  of  date, 
within  which  it  is  difficult  to  be  more  precise.  On  grounds 
of  style  a  grouping  with  Twelfth  Night,  a  little  after  Much 
Ado  about  Nothing^  in  1599  seems  reasonable.  The  'lover 
and  his  lass'  song  (v.  3.  17)  is  probably  original  here,  as 
it  echoes  one  at  the  same  point  in  the  source.  There  is  a 
setting  in  Thomas  Morley's  First  Book  of  Airs,  or  Little 
Short  Songs  (1600),  of  which  the  only  known  copy  is  in 
the  collection  of  H.  C.  Folder.  The  forest  theme  may  have 
been  selected  in  rivalry  with  the  Admiral's  Robin  Hood 
plays  of  I598.1  The  quotation  (iiL  5.  81)  of  a  line  from 
Marlowe's  Hero  and  Leander  would  come  most  naturally 


Chap.  IX  AS  YOU  LIKE  IT  403 

after  the  publication  of  that  poem  in  1598.  Some  other 
historical  and  literary  echoes  which  have  been  suggested 
are  too  vague  or  too  remote  in  date.  If  'Diana  in  the 
fountain*  (iv.  i.  154)  was  the  image  in  Cheapside,  that  was 
set  up  in  I596.1  One  cannot  seriously,  with  Chalmers, 
relate  the  antithesis  of  court  and  country  to  the  troubles  of 
the  Earl  of  Essex  in  1599,  or,  with  Aldis  Wright,  Rosa- 
lind's chaff  about  'pretty  oaths  that  are  not  dangerous' 
(iv.  i.  193)  and  a  magician  who  tenders  life  dearly 
(v.  2.  77),  to  the  Act  against  witchcraft  in  1603  or  that 
against  abuses  of  players  in  1606.  Of  the  earlier  parallels, 
Wilson  stresses  a  close  one  at  iii.  2. 103, 1 19,  and  one  less 
striking  at  ii.  2.  8,  to  passages  in  Nashe's  Strange  News 
of  the  Intercepting  of  Certain  Letters  of  1592  or  1593,*  and 
thinks  this  unlikely  to  have  been  read  by  Shakespeare  in 
1599.  He  also  supposes  that  Shakespeare  knew  Hero  and 
Leander  in  manuscript  before  it  was  published,  which  is 
of  course  possible,  and  that  a  reference  to  the  death  of 
Marlowe  in  a  quarrel  about  a  tavern  bill,  as  well  as  to  the 
'Infinite  riches  in  a  little  room'  of  Jew  of  Malta,  i.  i.  72,  is 
to  be  found  in  Touchstone's  complaint  (iii.  3.  14)  that  a 
lack  of  understanding  'strikes  a  man  more  dead  than  a 
great  reckoning  in  a  little  room'.  Such  an  allusion,  which 
would  surely  have  been  rather  heartless,  does  not  seem  to 
me  plausible,  and  Wilson's  points  cannot  of  course  weigh 
against  the  general  evidence  for  1598-1600.  Indeed,  he 
accepts  this  date,  but  only  for  a  revision  of  an  earlier 
version  of  1593,  which  largely  took  the  form  of  rewriting 
verse  scenes  in  prose.  For  this  he  finds  evidence,  partly 
in  textual  inconsistencies  as  to  the  relative  heights  of 
Rosalind  and  Celia  (i.  2.  284;  i.  3.  1 17;  iv.  3.  88)  and  as  to 
the  nomenclature  or  the  Dukes  (i,  2,  87,  246;  v.  4.  160), 
both  of  which  are  more  easily  explained  by  misprints,  and 
as  to  the  period  of  the  elder  Duke's  sojourn  in  the  forest 
(i.  i.  120;  i.  3.  73;  ii.  1.2),  which  is  too  Shakespearean  to 
need  explanation  at  all;  but  mainly  upon  a  theory,  sug- 
gested to  him  by  Pollard,  that  certain  prose  passages, 
unusually  full  of  scannable  lines  (cf.  p,  233),  had  originally 

1  Stowe,  Survey,  i.  266.  a  Works^  i.  275, 324. 

Dd  2 


404  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

been  written  as  verse.  They  make  very  good  prose,  how- 
ever, and  in  fact  it  is  just  as  easy  (cf.  my  criticism  in  Tear's 
Work  for  1926)  to  rewrite  as  verse,  with  what  Wilson 
calls  'a  little  innocent  faking',  passages  which  he  does  not 
believe  to  have  been  revised. 

As  Tou  Like  It  has  been  claimed,  on  the  authority  of  a 
document  not  now  verifiable  (App,  D),  as  the  play  given  by 
the  King's  men  at  Wilton  on  2  December  1 603.  Nothing 
else  is  known  of  its  after-history.  It  is  quite  possible,  how- 
ever, that  the  verses  of  Hymen  in  v.  4.  1 14-52,  markedly 
inferior  in  style  to  the  rest  of  the  play,  may  be  a  specta- 
cular interpolation  not  due  to  Shakespeare.  There  is  no 
textual  disturbance  in  F,  but  the  scene  would  run  well 
enough  without  them.  A  stage  tradition  (App.  C.  nos. 
xxxiv,  xliv)  represents  Shakespeare  himself  as  playing  the 
part  of  Adam. 

The  source  is  Thomas  Lodge's  prose  novel  ofRosalynde, 
orEuphues9  Golden  Legacy  (1590),  which  itself  owes  some- 
thing to  the  Tale  of  Gamelyn,  found,  although  not  Chaucer- 
ian, in  some  manuscripts  of  the  Canterbury  Tales.  It  is  pos- 
sible, although  not  very  probable,  that  a  further  reference 
to  this  motived  some  small  departures  by  Shakespeare  from 
Rosalynde.  But  it  was  not  in  print  until  1721.  On  A. 
Gray's  theory  that  Jaques  was  Shakespeare's  'purge'  to 
Jonson,  cf.  p.  72.  Newdigate's  suggestion  that  he  stands 
for  Sir  John  Harington  is  even  less  plausible.  Harington 
was  not  that  sort  of  man. 

XXI.   TWELFTH  NIGHT 

MS.  H:P.,  Reliques,  115,  describes  a  copy  from  F2  appar- 
ently made  for  a  seventeenth-century  performance,  and 
marked  with  the  names  of  characters  at  their  points  of 
entry.  It  was  afterwards  at  Warwick  Castle. 

[Fi.  1623.]  [Catalogue']  Twelfe-Night,  or  what  you  will. 
[Comedies,  pp.  255-75,  sign.  Y  2-Z  6.  Head-title]  Twelfe 
Night,  Or  what  you  will.  [Running-title']  Twelfe  Night,  or, 
What  you  will. 
[Acts  and  sec  marked.] 


Chap.  IX  TWELFTH  NIGHT  405 

Facsimile.  J.  D.  Wilson  (1928). 

Modern  Editions.  H.  H.  Furness  (1901,  New  Variorum)-,  A.  D. 
Innes  (1895,  Warwick);  M.  Luce  (1906,  1929,  Arden);  G.  H. 
Nettleton  (1922,  YaU)\  A.  T.  Quiller-Couch  and  J.  D.  Wilson 
(1930,  C.U.P.) 

Dissertations.  F.  G.  Fleay,  On  the  Date  and  Composition  of  TJN.  (1874, 


f        '  -  9  —  —  //»—"—  —  •    •— "w»*fc».j  -w**.  «     »•.  v**v  +rjL**ff     I   A  U  /  U, 

#.£.$.  7>a».  88)  and  in  f*y«(*s  *W  /F0r&  */  >$»  £**//,  Ixxxv  (1880, 
HakluytSoc. lix);  H.  Conrad,  VberdieEntstehungszeit  von  TJf.  (1805,  7. 
xxxi,  177),  Z*  ^»  e^//«r  m*  Air  TJK  (1912, £.5. xlvi.  73);  H.  Meiss- 
ner,  Die  Quellen  zu  Shs  TJf.  (1895);  H.  Logemann,  Johannes  de  Witt's 
Visit  to  the  Swan  Theatre  (1897,  Anglia,  xix.  1 17);  J.  de  Perott,  Noch  eine 
eventuelle  Quelle  zum  TJf.  (1910,  J.  xlvi.  118);  I.  Gollancz,  Malvolio 
(1916,  Sh.  Homage,  177);  J.  D.  Wilson,  TJt.  and  the  Gunpowder  Plot 
(1929,  June  1 3,  T.L.S.). 

F  is  a  good  text,  with  normal  stage-directions,  including 
notes  for  the  introduction  of  music  and  a  misnaming  (i.  5. 
177)  of  Viola  as  Violenta;  it  may  rest  on  prompt-copy. 

The  earliest  notice  of  the  play  is  John  Manningham's 
record  (App.  B,  no.  xxiv)  of  a  performance  in  the  Middle 
Temple  on  2  February  1 602.  It  was  evidently  then  new  to 
him.  But  it  is  so  akin  in  style  and  temper  to  As  Tou  Like  It 
that  a  somewhat  earlier  date  appears  probable;  and  if  this 
is  put  in  1600-1,  it  is  fairly  consistent  with  such  literary 
and  historical  clues  as  are  not  too  tenuous  to  deserve  con- 
sideration. We  must,  however,  assume  that  if  the  song 
at  ii.  3.  40  is  Shakespeare's,  which  it  may  well  be,  it  may 
not  have  been  originally  written  for  the  play,  since  music 
for  an  air  called  'O  mistress  mine*  appears,  without  words, 
in  Thomas  Morley's  First  Book  of  Consort  Lessons  (1599). 
It  is,  however,  not  clear  (Noble  8 1)  that  this  setting  was  for 
Shakespeare's  song,  and  one  of  Mistress  Mine  in  Morley's 
Short  Book  of  Airs  (1600),  now  in  the  Folger  collection,  is 
said  to  be  distinct  from  his.  But  the  song-scraps  in  ii.  3. 
109-21  are  from  Robert  Jones's  First  Book  of  Songs  and 
Airs  (i  600).  Logemann's  identification  of  the  scene  (iii.  4) 
where  Malvolio  appears  cross-gartered  with  the  action 
represented  in  De  Witt's  Swan  drawing  of  1596  must  in 
any  case  be  rejected;  Twelfth  Night  can  hardly  have  been 
played  at  the  Swan.  The  satire  of 'cross-wooing'  in  EM.  O. 


406  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

(1599),  iii.  6.  195,  is  too  general  to  carry  a  special  applica- 
tion to  the  play.  On  the  other  hand,  the  *fat  fool',  who  will 
'rore  out  his  barren  bold  iests,  with  a  tormenting  laughter, 
betweene  drunke,  and  drie*  in  Poetaster  (1601),  iii.  4.  345, 
sounds  very  much  like  an  echo  of  Sir  Toby  Belch.  Sir 
Robert  Shirley,  returning  enriched  from  Persia  in  1599, 
perhaps  inspired  the  allusion  (ii.  5.  197)  to  'a  pension  of 
thousands  to  be  paid  by  the  Sophy';  and  the  'new  map 
with  the  augmentation  of  the  Indies'  (iii.  2,  85)  was 
probably  the  'Hydrographical  Description'  prepared 
about  1598-9  by  Emerie  Molyneux.  Examples  are 
sometimes  bound  up  with  Hakluyt's  Principal!  Navi- 
gations (1598-1600).  Orsino,Duke  of  Bracciano,  visited 
London  during  the  winter  of  1 600-1  .x  The  rather  vague 
reference  discovered  by  Wilson  in  iii.  i.  24—35  to  *ke 
Jesuit  doctrine  of  equivocation  (cf.  s.v.  MacbetK]^  already 
avowed  by  Robert  Southwell  at  his  trial  in  1595,  cannot 
weigh  in  favour  of  a  date  after  the  Gunpowder  Plot 
against  the  evidence  for  one  in  or  before  1602. 

Fleay  thought  that  the  Viola-Orsino-Olivia  plot,  fairly 
detachable  from  that  of  Malvolio,  was.  a  revision  of  earlier 
work,  chiefly  because  i.  2.  57  and  ii.  4.  2  suggested  to  him 
that  the  songs  were  originally  given  to  Viola;  but  this  is 
very  slight  ground.  Conrad  found  more  parallels  to  early 
than  to  late  work  in  this  part  of  the  play,  and  Sarrazin 
showed  that  this  argument  was  based  on  inadequate 
observation.2  It  is  open  to  any  one  to  produce  a  fresh  case 
for  revision  on  the  basis  of  the  many  scannable  lines  (cf. 
p.  233)  in  the  prose  scenes. 

The  play  was  revived  at  court  in  1 61 8  andagain  underthe 
title  MafooKo  in  1 62  3  (App.  D),  and  Digges  (App.  B,  no.  Iii) 
records  its-pofmlarity  in  1 640.  The  mildness  of  Sir  Toby 
Belch's  profanity  may  be  due  to  Jacobean  expurgation. 

The  motive  of  a  lady  disguised  as  a  page  to  the  man  she 
loves  is  widespread,  and  had  been  combined  before  Twelfth 
Night  with  that  of  the  resembling  twins  and  their  separa- 
tion by  a  shipwreck.  Shakespeare  had  already  used  one  in 
Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona  and  the  other  in  Comedy  of  Errors. 

1  Chamberlain,  Efix.  99.  »  y.  xxxii.  164. 


Chap.  IX  TWELFTH  NIGHT        • ,  407 

Manningham  compared  the  play  to  the  Italian  Inganni. 
Perhaps  he  meant  the  Inganni  of  Nicolo  Secchi  (1562); 
perhaps  that  of  Curzio  Gonzaga  (1592),  which  has  the 
name  Cesare;  perhaps  the  earlier  Ingannati  (1537)  of  the 
academy  of  Intronati,  which  comes  nearer  to  Shake- 
speare's handling,  and  has  in  the  induction  a  Fabio, 
a  Malevolti,  and  a  mention  of  'la  notte  di  Beffana' 
(Epiphany).  This  was  perhaps  the  source  of  a  story  in 
Matteo  Bandello's  Novelle  (1554),  ii.  36,  translated  in 
P.  de  Belleforest's  Histoires  Tragiques,  iv  (1571)  59;  and 
this  in  its  turn  the  source  of  the  story  of  Afolonius  and 
Silla  in  Barnabe  Riche's  Farewell  to  the  Military  Profession 
(1581).  Shakespeare  probably  used  this,  as  it  adds  the 
shipwreck  theme,  but  his  debt  was  not  very  great.  He 
may  also  have  read  of  the  disguised  lady  in  Giraldi  Cin- 
tio's  Ecatommiti)  v.  8,  or  Sidney's  Arcadia  (1590),  or 
the  play  of  Sir  Clyomon  and  Clamydes  (1599),  or  Emanuel 
Forde's  Parismus  (1598),  which  also  has  a  shipwreck  and 
the  names  Olivia  and  Violetta. 

Riche's  story  became  also  the  source  of  the  German  play 
Tugend-  und  Liebes-Streit  (1677),  of  which  an  earlier  form 
may  have  been  the  King  of  Cyprus  and  Duke  of  Venice^ 
played  by  Green's  company  of  travelling  English  actors 
at  Graz  in  1608  and  Dresden  in  1626.*  Creizenach,  who 
prints  Tugend-  und  Liebesstreit  in  Schausfiele  der  Eng- 
lischen  KomSdianten  (1889),  53,  thinks  that  some  common 
divergences  from  Riche  here  and  in  Twelfth  Night  may 
point  to  a  lost  English  play  as  an  intermediary.  Riche  says 
that  some  of  his  stories  had  been  'presented  on  a  stage*. 

There  is  no  clear  source  for  the  Malvolio  episodes. 
Gollancz  2  has  suggested  an  analogue  to  the  misrule  of 
ii.  3  in  a  quarrel  at  court  between  the  Earl  of  Southampton 
and  Ambrose  Willoughby,  and  I  have  suggested  another 
in  a  story  told  of  Sir  William  Knollys  and  Elizabeth's 
maids  of  honour.3 

«  Efa.  Stage,  ii.  281, 286.  *  U. .-  A  Survey,  178. 

2  SL  Homage,  177. 


408  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

XXII.    HAMLET 

[S.R.  1602.]  xxvjto  Julij.  James  Robertas.  Entred  for  his 
Copie  vnder  the  handes  of  master  Pasfield  and  master 
Waterson  warden  A  booke  called  the  Revenge  of  Hamlett 
Prince  Denmarke  as  yt  was  latelie  Acted  by  the  Lord 
Chamberleyne  his  servantes.  vjd.  (Arber,  iii.  212). 

[Qi.  1603.]  The  Tragicall  Historic  of  Hamlet  Prince 
of  Denmarke  By  William  Shake-speare.  As  it  hath  beene 
diuerse  times  acted  by  his  Highnesse  seruants  in  the 
Cittie  of  London:  as  also  in  the  two  Vniuersities  of  Cam- 
bridge and  Oxford,  and  else-where  [Nicholas  Ling's 
device  (McKerrow  301)]  At  London  printed  (by  Valen- 
tine Simmes)  for  N(icholas)  L(ing)  and  lohn  Trundell. 

1603.  [Head-title]    The  Tragicall  Historic  of  Hamlet 
Prince  of  Denmarke.    [Running-title]    The  Tragedie  of 
Hamlet  Prince  of  Denmarke, 

Facsimle.  W.  Griggs  (1880,  Sh.  Q.  i,  ed.  F.  J.  Furnivall). 
Reprints.  W.  A.  Wright  (1893,  Cambridge  Sh.  ix.  697);  G.  B. 
Harrison  (1923). 
Edition.  F.  G.  Hubbard(i92o). 

[Q2.  1604.]  The  Tragicall  Historic  of  Hamlet,  Prince  of 
Denmarke.  By  William  Shakespeare.  Newly  imprinted 
and  enlarged  to  almost  as  much  againe  as  it  was,  accord- 
ing to  the  true  and  perfect  Coppie.  [Nicholas  Ling's 
device  (McKerrow  301)]  At  London,  Printed  by 
I(ames)  R(oberts)  for  Nicholas)  L(ing)  and  are  to  be  sold 
at  his  shoppe  vnder  Saint  Dunstons  Church  in  Fleet-street. 

1604.  [Head-title  j  under  ornament  with  royal  arms,  and 
Running-title]  The  Tragedieof  HamletPrinceof Denmarke. 
[In  some  copies  the  tp.  is  dated  1 605.] 

Facsimle.  W.  Griggs  (1880,  Sh.  Q.  ii,  ed.  F.  J.  FurnivaU). 

[S.R.  1607.]  19  Novembris.  John  Smythick.  Entred 
for  his  copies  vnder  thandes  of  the  wardens,  these  bookes 
followinge  Whiche  dyd  belonge  to  Nicholas  Lynge.  viz. 
...  6  A  booke  called  Hamlett . , .  (Arber,  iii.  365). 

. 1 6 1 1 .]  The  Tragedy  of  Hamlet  Prince  of  Denmarke. 


Chap.  IX  HAMLET  409 

By  William  Shakespeare.  Newly  imprinted  and  enlarged 
to  almost  as  much  againe  as  it  was  according  to  the  true 
and  perfect  Coppy.  [Smethwick's  device  (McKerrow  376)] 
At  London,  Printed  for  lohn  Smethwick,  and  are  to  be 
sold  at  his  shoppe  in  Saint  Dunstons  Church  yeard  in 
Fleetstreet.  Vnder  the  Diall.  1611.  [Head-title}  The 
Tragedie  of  Hamlet  Prince  of  Denmarke.  [Running-title'] 
The  Tragedy  of  Hamlet  Prince  of  Denmarke. 

[Fi.    1623.]     [Catalogue]    The   Tragedy   of    Hamlet 
[Tragedies,  pp.  152-6,  257-80,  sign,  nn  4v-qqv.   Head- 
title*]    The  Tragedie  of  Hamlet,  Prince  of  Denmarke. 
[Running-title']  The  Tragedie  of  Hamlet. 
[Acts  and  sec.  marked  to  ii.  2.] 

[£4.  n.d.  (161101637)]  W(illiam)  S(tansby)  for  lohn 
Smethwicke, 

[Q5- 1637,]  R.  Young  for  John  Smethwicke. 

Parallel-texts.  E.  P.  Vining  (1890,  Bankside,  Qi+Fi);  W. 
Victor  (1891,  Qi+Q2+Fi). 

German  Version.  MS.  Library  of  Gotha,  with  title  Tragoedia  Der 
bestrafte  Bruder-mord  oder:  Prinz  Hamlet  aus  Dannemark,  dated 
Tretz  <Preetz  in  Holstein),  den  27  October  1710*. 

Editions.  H.  A.  O.  Reichard  (1781,  OllaPotrida^  ii.  18)5  A.  Cohn 
(1865,  Sh.  in  Germany);  W.  Creizenach  (1889,  Schauspiele  der 
Englischen  Komodianten^  125). 

Translations.  G.  Archer  (with  Cohn's  ed.5  under  tide  Fratricide 
Punished);  H.  H.  Furness  (1877,  Hamlet,  ii.  121). 

Modern  Editions.  H.  H.  Furness  (1877,  New  Variorum);  E.  K. 
Chambers  (1894,  Warwick);  E.  Dowden  (18199, 1928,  Arden). 

Dissertations.  T.  Mommsen,  Eeurtheilung  Uber  den  Deliufschen  #.(1855, 
Neue  Jahrbuchf.  Philolo&e  und  Psdagogik,  Ixxii.  57,  107,  159);  R.  G. 
Latham,  Two  Dissertations  on  the  H.  ofSaxo  Grammaticus  (1872);  F.  A. 
Marshall,  A  Study  ofH.  (1875);  K.  Silberschag,  SAs  H.,  seine  Quellen  und 
folitischen  Beziehungen  (1877,  J.  xii.  261);  B.  Nicholson,  Kemp  and  the 
PlayofH.—Torickand  Tar/to*  (iSSo, N.S.S.  Trans.  57);  C.H.Herford 
and  W.  H.  Widgery,  The  Qi  of  H.  (i  880) ;  G.  Tanger,  The  Qi  and  Qs 
andFi,  of  H.  (1880,  N.S.8.  Trans.  109),  H.  nach  Shs  Manuscript  (1881, 
Anglia,  iv,  211),  DerB3.  und  sein  Verhaltniss  zu  Sis  H.  (1888,  J.  xadii. 
224);  H.  Conrad  (Isaac),  Hs  Familie  (1881,  J.  xvi.  274),  Die  H.-Periode 


4io  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

in  Shs  Lcben  (1885-6,  Archiv,  Ixxiii.  163,  371;  Ixxiv.  45;  Ixxv.  i.  269), 
H. und sein  Urbild(i^9  Shs Selbst-bekenntnisse)\  F.  G.  Fleay, Neglected 
Facts  on  H.  (1884,  £.$.vii.  87);  W.  Creizenach,  Die  Tragodie  B.B.  und 
ihre  Bedeutungfur  die  Kritik  des  SKschen  H.  (1887,  Berichte  der  Phil.- 
Hist.  Classe  der  Sachsischen  Gesellschaft  der  Wissenschafteri),  B.B.  and  its 
Relation  to  SL's  H.  (1904,  M.P.  ii.  249),  H.-Fragen  (1906,  J.xlii.  76); 
G.  Sarrazin,  Die  Entstehung  der  H.  Tragodie  (  1889-91,  Anglia,*&.  143; 
xu'L 117;  xiv.  322),  Thomas  Kyd  und  sein  Kreis  (1892),  Das  Personal  von 
Shs  H.  und  der  Hof  Friedrichs  II  von  Danemark  (1895,  E.S.  xxi.  330), 
Der  Name  Ophelia  (1895,  E.S.  xxi.  443);  F.  A.  Leo,  Rosenkrantz  und 
Guldenstern  (1890-1,  J.  xxv.  281;  xxvi.  325);  R.  Loening,  Die  H.- 
Tragodie  Shs(i  892) ;  O.  Elton,  Sh.9s  H.  ( 1 894,  with  Trans/.  ofSaxo  Gram- 
mattcus)\  J.  Corbin,  The  Elizabethan  H.  (1895),  The  German  H.  and  the 
Earlier  English  Persians  (1896,  Harvard  Studies  and  Notes,  v.  247);  I. 
Gollancz,  Hamlet  in  Iceland  (1898),  The  Name  Polonius  (1914,  Archiv, 
cxxxii,  141),  Polonius  (1916,  Sh.Homage,  173);  The  Sources  of 'H.  (1926) ; 
M.  W.  MacCallum,  The  Authorship  of  the  Early  #.  ( 1 90 1,  Furnivall  Misc.) ; 
J.  Schick,  Die  Entstehung  des  H.  (1902,  J.  xxxviii.  xiii),  Corf  us  Hamleti- 
cum  (1906) ;  A.  H.  Thorndike,  The  Relation  ofH.  to  Contemporary  Revenge 
Plays  (1902,  PM.L.A.  xvii.  125);  M.B.  Evans,  B.B.,seinFerhaltnisszu 
ShsH.  (1902,  K)io),B.B.undShsH.  (1905,^.^.^.433);  A.H.Tolman, 
The  Flews  about  H.  ( 1 904) ;  H.  Logeman,  St.  te  Helsingor  ( 1 904,  Melanges 
Paul Fredericy)\  F.P.v. Westenholz, .D/V ^.-(37(1904, ^.^.xxxiv. 337); 
R.  Zeckex,Boeve-4mlethus ^(1905);  A.  E.  Jack,  Thomas  Kyd  and  the  Ur-  H. 
(1905,  P.M.L.4.  xx.  729);  E.  E.  Stoll,  SL,  Marston  and  the  Malcontent 
Type  (1906,  M.P.  iii.  281),  &.,  a  Comparative  Study  (1919);  J.  W.  Cun- 
liffe,  Nash  and  the  Earlier  H.  (1906,  P.M.L-J.  xxi.  193);  C.  M.  Lewis, 
The  Genesis  of  H.  (1907);  ^.^i^^S97ersucheinerpraktischenH^Kritik 
(1907,  Anglia,  xxx.  56);  R.  B.  McKerrow,  Note  on  Preface  to  Menaphon 
(1908,  Works  ofNashe,  iv.  444);  J.  Allen,  The  Lost  H.  of  Kyd  (1908, 
Westminster  Reviezo)\  C.  Meier,  Zum  Ur-H.  (1909,  Anglia9Beiblatt9-xL. 
1 19);  J.  D.  Fitzgerald,  The  Sources  of  the  H.  Tragedy  (1909),  Qi  ofH.:  a 
Literary  Fraud  (1910),  Qi  ofH.  (1919,  Aug.  7,  T.L.S.);  E.  B.  Reed,  The 
College  Element  in  H.  (1909,  M . P.  ^.453);  J.  Huizinga,  Rosenkranz  und 
Guldenstern  (1910,  J.  xlvi.  60);  W.  W.  Greg,  TheH.  Q?  (1910, M.L.R. 
v.  196),  The  H.  Texts  and  Recent  Work  in  SA.  Bibliography  (1919,  M.L.R. 
xiv.  380),  Principles  of  Emendation  in  Sh.  (1928),  23,  54;  W.  v.  Gersdoff, 
7om  Ursprung  des  deutschen  H.  (1912,  J.  xlviii.  148);  M.  J.  Wolff,  Zum 
Ur-H.  (1912,  E.S.  xiv.  9),  Italienisches  bet  St.  (1920,  E.S.  liv.  473); 
G.  G.  A.  Murray,  H.  and  Orestes  (1914, 1927,  The  Classical  Tradition  in 
Poetry,  205);  H.  D.  Gray,  Qz  ofH.  (1915,  M.L.R.  x.  171),  Did  Sh. 
WriteaTragedy  ofDia*o?(i<)2o,M.l.R.xr.  217),  Thomas  Kydand  Qiof 
H.  (1927,  PM.L~d.  xlii.  721),  Reconstruction  of  a  Lost  Play  (1928,  P.Q. 
vii.  254);  }±.k*?.VB&T3*m,ArethereInterpolationsintheTextofH.(iQi69 
Sh.  Homage,  473),  The  TextofSh.'sH.  (1924);  J.  D.  Wilson,  The  Copy  for 
H.  1603  and  the  H.  Transcript  1593  (1918,  from  3  Library,  ix.  1 53, 217), 
Spellings  and  Misprints  in  Q*  ofH.  (1924,  Essays  and  Studies,  x.  36); 


Chap.  IX  HAMLET  411 

F.  G.  Hubbard,  rA?M*w/^  ^ 

The  Readings  o/Qi  ofH.  (1923,  PM.L.A.  xxxviii.  792) ;  J.  M.  Robertson, 
The  Problem  ofH.(i<)i<j),H.  OnceMore (1923);  V.0sterberg,  Studierover 
H.-Texterne  (1920);  L.  Winstanley,  H.  and  the  Scottish  Succession  (1921), 
H.  and  the  Essex  Conspiracy  (1924-5,  Aberystwyth  Studies,  vi.  47;  vii.  37); 
A.  Glutton-Brock,  Sh.'s  H.  (1922) ;  W.  Pod,  Q i  ofH.  (1922, 12  N.Q.  zi. 
301);  W.  S.  Fox,  Lucian  in  the  Grave-Scene  ofH.  (1923,  P.Q.  H.  132); 
K.  Malone,  The  Literary  History  ofH.  (1923),  On  the  Etymology  ofH. 
(1925,  P.Q.  iv.  158),  Etymologies  for  H.  (1927,  R3.8.  iii.  257),  More 
Etymologies  for  H.  (1928,  R.E.S.  iv.  257);  H.de  Groot,  H.9  its  Textual 
History  (1923),  De  Geschiedenis  van  het  Hamletprobleem  (1928,  Neophilo- 
logus,  xiii.  282);  H.  Farr,  Notes  on  SA.'s  Printers  and  Publishers  (1923, 
4  Library,  iii.  225);  E.  Seligman  and  others,  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern 
(1926,  Jan.  7,  14,  21,  28,  T.L.S.);  W.  J.  Lawrence,  #.  as  Sh.  Staged It 
(1927,  Pre-Restoration  Studies,  102).  W*  Z>*/*  of  Sh.'s  H.  (1928,  W// 
Workshop,  98),  FA?  Aty//<?ry  0/1  />fe  H.  Qi  (1928,  /W.  no);  J.  M. 
Murry  and  others,  A  Sh.  Problem  (1928,  July  12,  Aug.  2,  16,  7M.S.); 
W.  Marschall,  Welchen  Dialekt spricht  Hamlet?  (1928,  Anglia,  Iii.  362); 

G.  F.  Bradby,  The  Problems  ofH.  (1928). 

A  play,  not  indicated  as  'ne',  of  Hamlet  was  given 
by  the  Admiral's  or  Chamberlain's  or  both  (App.  D) 
for  Henslowe  at  Newington  Butts  on  n  June  1594. 
Probably  it  belonged  to  the  Chamberlain's,  and  later 
performances  by  them  are  recalled  in  T.  Lodge,  Wif$ 
Miserie  (1596),  56,  'the  Visard  of  ye  ghost  which  cried  so 
miserably  at  y*  Theater,  like  an  oister  wife,  Hamlet,  re- 
venge'. In  Dekker,  Satiromastix,  iv.  i.  150,  Tucca  says, 
'my  name's  Hamlet  revenge:  thou  hast  been  at  Parris 
garden  hast  not  ?' I  This  seems  to  suggest  performance  at 
the  Swan  in  Paris  Garden,  as  well  as  at  the  Theatre,  but  - 
the  Chamberlain's  men  are  not  known  to  have  used  the 
Swan.  The  Ghost  does  not  call  'Hamlet,  revenge'  in  the 
Shakespearean  texts,  although  the  demand  for  revenge  is 
in  i.  5.  7.  The  old  play  is  not  likely  to  have  survived 
Shakespeare's,  but  is  still  echoed  in  S(amuel)  R(owlands) 
The  Night-Raven  (1620),  sign.  D  2,  'I  will  not  call  Hamlet 
Revenge  my  greeves'.  It  is  uncertain  whether  it  is  quoted 
in  Robert  Armin,  Nest  of  Ninnies  (1608),  55,  'Ther  ar,  as 
Hamlet  saies,  things  cald  whips  in  store',2  The  passage 
is  not  in  the  earlier  editions  (i  600, 1 605)  of  Armin's  work. 
The  phrase  'things  called  whippes'  is  found  both  in 

1  Cf.  Elisc.  Stage,  iii.  293.  2  Cf.  ibid.  ii.  300. 


412  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

2  Hen.  VI)  ii.  i.  136  and  in  the  additions  to  Spanish 
Tragedy  (1602),  1904,  but  Armin's  version  suggests  con- 
tamination by  Ham.  iii.  i.  70,  'the  whips  and  scorns  of 
time*.  Probably  the  old  play  already  existed  in  1589,  and 
is  referred  to  in  Nashe's  Efistle  to  Greene's  Menaphon 
of  that  year,1  'English  Seneca  read  by  Candlelight  yeelds 
many  good  sentences,  as  Blood  is  a  l>egger>  and  so  forth;  and 
if  you  intreate  him  faire  in  a  frostie  morning,  hee  will 
affoord  you  whole  Hamlets^  I  should  say  handfuls  of 
Tragical  speeches'.  The  whole  passage  is  an  attack  on  'a 
few  of  our  triuiall  translators*,  who  are  also  imitators  of 
Seneca.  Allusions  to  'the  trade  of  Noverint)  whereto  they 
were  borne*  and  to  'the  Kidde  in  /Esop',  suggest  that 
one  of  these  was  Thomas  Kyd,  but  do  not,  in  view  of 
Nashe's  plurals,  necessarily  carry  the  inference  that  he 
wrote  the  Hamlet. 

It  will  be  simplest,  before  describing  the  versions,  to 
state  my  general  conclusion,  that  Q2  substantially  repre- 
sents the  original  text  of  the  play,  as  written  once  and  for 
all  by  Shakespeare,  and  that  Fi,  Qi,  and  Der  bestrafte 
Brudermord  (B.B!)  are  all  in  various  ways  based  upon 
derivatives  from  that  text.  The  literature  of  the  play  is  un- 
wieldy, but  the  tabulation  and  analyses  of  structural  and 
textual  variants  by  Tanger,  Wilson,  De  Groot,  and  Van 
Dam  provide  adequate  material  for  a  departure  from 
many  of  their  conclusions. 

Q2  is  the  fullest  version,  being  longer  by  over  200  lines 
than  Fi,  and  much  more  than  half  as  long  again  as  Qi, 
but  it  omits  some  8  5  lines  found  in  F  i .  It  is  a  fair  text,  with 
little  mislineation,  light  punctuation,  and  a  good  many 
abnormal  spellings,  and  may  very  possibly  be  from  the 
author's  manuscript,  but  if  so,  numerous  misprints  suggest 
that  this  was  not  very  legible.  There  is  no  evidence  that  it 
had  been  used  as  prompt-copy.  The  stage-directions  are 
normal.  There  are  some  variations  of  nomenclature  be- 
tween 'Queene*  and  'Gertrard*,  'King'  and  'Claudio',  and 
'Courtier'  and  'Ostricke'.  The  later  Qq  were  set  up 
successively  from  Q2  and  each  other. 

1  EKz.  Stage,  iv.  234. 


Chap.  IX  HAMLET  413 

The  greater  part  of  the  F  text  is  close  enough  to  that  of 
Q2  to  show  a  common  origin.  But  the  absence  of  any 
typographical  resemblance  and  of  any  but  trifling  and  pro- 
bably accidental  concurrence  in  error  does  not  suggest  that 
it  was  set  up  from  that  or  any  Q,  even  with  the  aid  of 
an  independent  manuscript,  such  as  must  have  supplied, 
not  only  the  substantial  passages  lacking  in  Q2,  but  also 
a  number  of  smaller  omissions.  Many  of  these  are  repeti- 
tions of  words  and  phrases.  This  is  an  easy  kind  of  mis- 
print, and  a  theory  that  these  repetitions  were  inserted  by 
the  actors,  or  in  particular  by  Burbadge,  is  quite  super- 
fluous. They  are  not  confined  to  one  part,  and  in  fact 
there  are  some  in  Q2,  which  F  in  its  turn  omits.  The 
same  trick  of  repetition  is  found  in  other  plays,  notably 
Richard  III.  Nevertheless,  the  manuscript  underlying  F, 
presumably  in  its  origin  a  transcript  from  that  underlying 
Qa,  had  no  doubt  been  used  as -a  prompt-copy.  The 
nomenclature  has  been  unified,  and  the  stage-directions, 
although  still  bearing  a  resemblance  to  those  of  Q2,  have 
been  revised,  by  clearing  up  indefiniteness,  and  omitting 
or  varying  the  provision  for  music  and  properties.  These 
changes  may  be  ascribed  to  the  book-keeper;  but  it  is  not 
obvious  that  some  fresh  notes  for  action,  especially  in  the 
graveyard  and  duel  scenes,  would  be  required  by  him. 
Some  of  the  numerous  verbal  variants  in  F  from  Q2  bear 
a  similar  explanation ;  they  are  sophistications  of  vocabu- 
lary or  grammar,  such  as  we  find  in  other  F  texts.  Others 
are  due  to  misprints  on  one  side,  or  in  the  case  of  F  mis- 
transcriptions. The  subconscious  mind  of  the  transcriber 
is  probably  seen  in  the  substitution  of  synonyms  or  other 
associated  alternatives  for  Q2  words,  and  he  may  have 
emended  occasionally  to  make  sense  of  matter  he  could  not 
read.  The  concurrence  of  Qi  and  F  against  Q2  points, 
on  my  view  (infra)  of  Qi,  to  the  responsibility  of  the  F 
transcriber  for  a  variant;  that  of  Q2  and  Qi  against  F  to 
the  responsibility  of  the  F  printer.  There  remain  a  few 
variants  which  it  is  difficult  to  explain.  Wilson  has  shown 
that  a  combination  of  literal  misreadings  may  lead  to  some 
odd  transformations.  Greg  thinks  that  a  few  deliberate 


4i4  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO          Chap.  IX 

alterations  were  introduced  into  the  transcript  by  or  with 
the  authority  of  Shakespeare.1  The  punctuation  of  F 
tends  to  be  heavier  than  that  of  Q2. 

I  come  now  to  the  substantial  omissions  of  the  two  texts. 
There  are  only  two  in  Q2  for  which  a  reason  other  than 
printing-house  carelessness  must  be  sought;  ii.  2.  244-76, 
a  depreciatory  account  of  Denmark  as  a  prison,  followed 
by  a  dialogue  on  ambition,  and  ii.  2.  352-79,  where  the 
travelling  of  the  players  is  ascribed  (cf.  p.  65)  to  the 
success  of  'an  ayrie  of  children'.  Both  passages  must  have 
been  part  of  the  original  text;  the  excision  in  the  first  case 
has  left  an  awkward  duplication  of  'But'  at  the  beginnings 
of  two  consecutive  sentences,  and  in  the  second  has  ob- 
scured the  point  of  the  reference  to  the  King's  'picture  in 
little'.  Perhaps  the  best  explanation  is  that  of  De  Groot, 
that  by  1604  Anne  of  Denmark  was  Queen  of  England, 
and  had  taken  the  criticized  company  of  children  under 
her  special  protection.  If  so,  we  have  an  unusual  example 
of  cutting,  not  for  stage  purposes,  but  as  a  result  of  dis- 
cretion or  censorship  at  the  time  of  printing.  One  cannot 
always  be  sure  whether  the  F  omissions  are  due  to  accident 
or  to  cutting.  But  I  think  that  the  latter  is  responsible  for 
i.  i.  108-25;  i. 4.  17-38,  75-8;  iii.4,  71-6, 161-5,  167- 
70,  202-1  o;iv.  i.  4  i~4;iv.  4.9-665^.7.69-82, 115-24; 
v.  2.  110-41,  144-50.  One  or  two  of  these  passages  the 
players  may  have  found  obscure  or  undramatic,  but  they  are 
mostly  digressions,  which  do  not  advance  the  action,  and 
their  removal  shortens  long  speeches  or  long  sections  of 
dialogue.  They  only  amount  to  less  than  200  lines  and 
leave  the  play  still  a  very  long  one.  Probably  iv.  i.  4, 
although  only  a  single  line,  was  also  cut,  to  save  the  intro- 
duction of  two  actors.  There  are  other  traces  of  similar 
savings,  A  lord  drops  out  of  v.  2,  and  one  recorder  (Hi.  2), 
one  sailor  (iv.  6),  one  ambassador  (v.  2)  were  thought 
sufficient,  where  the  author's  stage-directions  contem- 
plated more.  A  little  of  this  cutting  (cf.  infra)  may  be  later 
than  the  preparation  of  the  transcript,  and  possibly  F  in- 
corporates other  slight  theatrical  modifications.  Thus 

1  Emendation*  24*  <6. 


Chap.  IX  HAMLET  415 

there  may  be  a  bit  of  interpolated  clowning  ('Get  thee  to 
Yaughan'  for  'Get  thee  in'  of  Q2)  at  v.  1 .  67.  One  would 
like  to  think  that  the  'O,  o,  o,  o',  which  follows  Hamlet's 
dying  The  rest  is  silence'  at  v.  2.  369,  is  another  example, 
and  its  recurrence  in  the  reported  Q  of  Lear,  v.  3. 309,  but 
not  in  F,  gives  some  encouragement.  Profanity  has  been 
expunged,  but  only  perfunctorily. 

Qi  is  a  very  difficult  problem.   It  is  generally  accepted 
that  many  of  its  features  are  due  to  a  reporter,  introducing, 
as  in  2, 3  Henry  71,  Romeo  and  Juliet,  Henry  V,  and  Merry 
Wives  of  WindsoTy  'gross  corruption,  constant  mutilation, 
meaningless  inversion  and  clumsy  transposition*.    The 
attempt  of  Hubbard  to  'edit'  it,  on  the  assumption  that 
the  corruption  is  only  a  matter  of  misprinting,  leaves  a  quite 
incredible  text.    A  comparison  with  Q2  and  F,  wherever 
the  substance  is  the  same,  is  a  continuous  revelation  of 
the  reporter.    He  makes  omissions,  causing  lacunae  of 
sense  and  grammar.   He  gives  the  beginnings  and  ends 
of  speeches  without  their  middles.  He  paraphrases.  He 
merges  distinct  speeches.   He  makes  a  mosaic  of  recol- 
lected fragments.    He  catches  vigorous  words  without 
their  context.    He  makes  double  use  of  phrases.    He 
shifts  the  order  of  bits  of  dialogue  within  their  scenes. 
Above  all  he  uses  or  echoes  in  one  scene  passages  which 
really  belong  to  an  earlier  or  later  one.   Thus  vii.  53  of  Q  i 
is  from  iii.  2.  354,  ix.  211-21  from  iv.  2.  12-23,  xi.  34-5 
from  i.  5.  49-50,  xi.  46  from  iii.  3.  90,  xv.  8  from  iv.  5. 
137;  while  i.  i.  173  is  echoed  inii.  25  gf  Qi,  iii.  2. 138  in 
ii.  33,  i.  2.  193  in  iii.  12,  iii.  i.  160  in  v.  38,  i.  5.  185-7 
in  viii.   18.     The  process  entails  much  vulgarization. 
Many  lines  are  unmetrical  or  bald.   Many  words  are 
represented  by  weak  synonyms;   others  by  words  of 
similar  sound  but  different  sense  or  no  sense,  which  point 
to  errors  of  hearing.  By  hearing,  too,  many  'connective' 
words  introduced   by  actors   have   been   incorporated. 
These,  with  omissions  and  failures  to  recognize  Shake- 
speare's short  lines,  have  led  to    much  mislineation. 
Nearly  all  the  prose  is  printed  in  capitalized  lines  of 
irregular  length.   A  few  exceptions  may  be  due  to  the 


4i6  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

occasional  realization  of  the  compositor  that  he  is  deal- 
ing with  prose.  I  do  not  think  that  the  reporter  was 
wholly  ignorant  of  blank  verse,  in  spite  of  his  metrical 
lapses.  He  fakes  up  a  good  many  lines,  and  when  he  comes 
on  a  couplet  and  has  forgotten  a  rhyming  word,  he  is  often 
capable  of  substituting  another.  But  he  evidently  fought 
shy  of  reconstructing  imperfectly  recollected  long  speeches, 
and  left  them  incoherent.  The  stage-directions  must  be 
his  own;  they  are  of  a  descriptive  character,  although  not 
so  elaborate  as  some  in  Romeo  and  Juliet.  And  in  two  places 
(xi.  7,  115)  he  puts  into  words  what  he  has  merely  seen 
as  dumb  action  on  the  stage.  Some  portions  of  the  play 
are  better  reported  than  others.  The  scenes  (i.  I ;  i.  2. 1 60- 
258;  1.4;  i.  5.  113—91))  in  which  Marcellus  occurs,  are 
notably  good,  although  not  perfect,  and  it  is  quite  possible 
that  the  reporter  was  the  actor  of  this  part.  The  single 
long  speech  (ii.  2.  60-80)  of  Voltimand  agrees  almost 
exactly  with  F.  The  reporter  can  hardly  have  played  this 
himself,  or  he  would  not  have  corrupted  the  name  into 
Voltemar.  It  may  be  that  a  manuscript  of  this  small  part 
was  available. 

Some  concurrences  between  F  and  Qi  against  Q2 
suggest  that  the  text  of  the  performances  reported  in  Qi 
was  derived  from  the  same  transcript  which  underlies  F. 
Moreover,  most  of  the  passages  cut  in  F  find  no  representa- 
tion in  Q  i .  There  are,  however,  traces  in  a  stage-direction 
at  xi.  1 1 1  and  a  speech  at  xviii.  30  of  iv.  i .  4  and  v.  2.  203- 
1 8.  F  must,  therefore,  at  these  points  have  diverged  from 
the  transcript.  Q  i ,  antedating  the  Act  of  Abuses  >  of  course 
retains  some  profanity  expunged  from  F.  But  it  also  has 
diverged.  Two  important  structural  changes  have  been 
made.  One  of  these  concerns  the  order  of  the  tests  by 
which  the  court  endeavours  to  ascertain  the  reason  of 
Hamlet's  strangeness.  There  are  three,  in  interviews 
with  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern  (the  Schoolfellow 
scene),  with  Polonius  (the  Fishmonger  scene),  with 
Ophelia  (the  Nunnery  scene).  The  sequence  in  Q2  and 
F  is  as  follows.  The  King  plans  the  Schoolfellow  test 
(ii.  2.  1-39).  Polonius  plans  the  Ophelia  test  (ii.  2.  85- 


Chap.  IX  HAMLET  417 

167).  Hamlet  appears  reading,  andPolonius  improvises 
his  own  test  (ii,  2.  168-223).  The  Schoolfellow  test  is 
carried  put  (ii.  2.  224-323).  Then  the  arrival  of  the 
players  intervenes  (ii.  2.  324-634).  The  failure  of  the 
Schoolfellow  test  is  reported  (iii.  i.  1-28).  Finally,  the 
Ophelia  test  is  tried  (iii.  i.  28-196).  In  Qi  on  the  other 
hand,  the  Ophelia  test  is  put  much  earlier,  and  immedi- 
ately follows  its  planning.  We  can  hardly  ascribe  the 
difference  to  the  reporter.  He  generally  gets  the  succes- 
sion of  his  episodes  right,  and  the  link-passages  in  Qi 
indicate  a  careful  modification  to  fit  the  new  order.  In 
particular  Ophelia,  absent  from  ii.  2  in  Q2  and  F, 
enters  with  her  father  at  the  point  (vi.  19)  corresponding 
in  Q  i  to  ii.  2.  40,  and  is  thus  available  when  Hamlet 
appears  reading.  Why  the  change  should  have  been 
made  is  not  so  clear.  It  abridges  the  interval  between  the 
planning  and  execution  of  the  Ophelia  test,  but  lengthens 
the  interval  before  the  Schoolfellow  test.  Possibly  it  was  an 
attempt  to  remove  an  original  inconsistency,  characteristic 
enough  of  Shakespeare,  by  which  Ophelia  is  bidden  to 
accompany  her  father  to  the  King  in  ii.  i,  but  left  out  in  ii. 
2.  The  second  change  is  towards  the  end  of  the  play. 
Here  Qi  omits  altogether  iv.  6,  in  which  Horatio  receives 
Hamlet's  letter  about  his  voyage,  and  v.  2.  1-74,  in  which 
Hamlet  and  Horatio  discuss  the  same  matter,  and  sub- 
stitutes in  the  place  of  iv.  6  a  different  scene,  in  which 
Horatio,  after  Hamlet's  return,  tells  the  story  of  the 
voyage  to  the  Queen.  Here  the  original  version  must 
be  that  of  Q2  and  F,  since  v.  2.  1—74  is  represented 
in  B.B. 

Two  other  divergences  in  Qi  are  noteworthy.  For  the 
names  of  Polonius  and  his  servant  Reynaldo  we  get 
Corambis  and  Montano.  It  is  impossible  that  these 
should,  as  Tanger  thought,  be  mishearings  of  the  reporter. 
Many  students  have  assumed  that  Corambis  and  Mon- 
tano were  the  earlier  names,  but  there  is  nothing  to  show 
this,  and  if  I  am  right  in  supposing  Qi  dependent  on  Q2, 
the  chances  are  that  it  was  the  other  way  round.  Shake- 
speare used  the  name  Corambus  in  All's  Well^  iv.  3.  185. 

3I42.I  *  c 


4i  8  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

There  are  two  rather  curious  stage-directions  in  Q2,  which 
may  conceivably  be  relevant.  At  i.  2.  i  comes  'Enter  ,  .  . 
Counsaile :  as  Polonius,  and  his  Sonne  Laertes',  and  at  ii. 
i.i,  'Enter  old  Polonius,  with  his  man  or  two*.  These  may 
be  mere  examples  of  indefiniteness,  although  Laertes  would 
make  an  odd  councillor.  But  it  is  also  possible  that,  when 
the  change  was  made  in  an  acting  version,  the  new  names 
were  roughly  noted  in  the  original  manuscript,  and  were 
there  misread  by  the  compositor.  Again  the  motive  for  the 
change  is  quite  obscure.  One  can  only  suspect  censorship, 
or  the  fear  of  censorship.  Gollancz  has  suggested  that 
Polonius  and  his  worldly  maxims  may  be  a  reflection  of 
the  Polish  statesman  Laurentius  Grimalius  Goslicius, 
whose  De  Optimo  Senatore  was  translated  as  The  Counsellor 
in  1598.  If  so,  this  is  another  reason  for  regarding 
Polonius  as  the  original  name.  It  has  often  been  thought 
that  Polonius  may  glance  at  Lord  Burghley,  who  wrote 
Certaine  Preceftes,  or  Directions  for  the  use  of  his  son 
Robert  Cecil.  These  were  printed  (1618)  'from  a  more 
perfect  copie,  than  ordinarily  those  pocket  manuscripts 
goe  warranted  by'.  Conceivably  Shakespeare  knew  a 
pocket  manuscript,  but  Laertes  is  less  like  Robert  Cecil 
than  Burghley's  elder  son  Thomas.  And  if  the  Chamber- 
lain's men  feared  that  Polonius  would  be  taken  for 
Burghley  and  Reynaldo  for  Robert  Cecil,  why  should  a 
change  of  name  but  not  of  character  make  a  difference.  Can 
'Polonius'  have  resembled  some  nickname  of  Burghley? 
I  do  not  profess  to  solve  the  mystery.  But  some  theatrical 
allusion  to  Polish  affairs  seemed  to  me  a  possible  element 
in  the  trouble  about  The  Isle  of  Dogs  in  I597,1  and  there 
might  have  been  some  reason  for  avoiding  the  appearance 
of  another  at  any  time  during  1 600-3,  when  negotiations 
with  regard  to  the  Baltic  trade  were  taking  place,  on  the 
one  hand  with  Denmark  and  on  the  other  with  the 
Hanseatic  towns,  in  some  of  which  Poland  had  an  interest 
in  1597.*  Lastly,  there  is  a  passage  in  Qi  which  can 

1  Etix.  Stage,  iii.  455.  passim\  cf.  Dasent,  xxx.  1955  Hatfield 

*  N.  R.  Deardoff,  Early  Trade  in      MSS.  xii.  283,  645. 
the  Baltic  duringthe  Reign  of  Elizabeth, 


Chap.  IX  HAMLET  419 

only  be  a  theatrical  interpolation.  Hamlet's  advice  to  the 
players  is  in  the  main  a  report.  But  this  is  followed 
by  a  series  of  clownish  witticisms  which  are  not  in  Qa 
or  F,  and  two  of  which  Wilson  has  traced  to  the  1611 
edition  of  Tarlton's  Jests,  5,  12.  There  was  probably  an 
earlier  edition.1  But  in  any  case  the  witticisms  were 
doubtless  traditional,  and  their  introduction  here  of  the 
nature  of  'gag'.  Rhodes  (Folio,  79)  suggests  that,  as  the 
reference  to  Hamlet's  fatness  (v.  2.  298)  is  not  in  Qi,  and 
the  interval  since  Yorick's  death  is  given  (v.  i.  190) 
as  a  'dozen*  instead  of  '23'  years,  the  part  had  been 
adapted  to  an  actor  of  nineteen.  This  is  ingenious,  but 
hazardous. 

How  far,  apart  from  these  alterations,  does  the  theory 
of  a  report  account  for  Qi,  as  we  have  it  ?  I  think  that  it 
accounts  for  most  of  it,  and  will  here  quote  Greg's  com- 
ment that  his  study  of  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  had  led 
him  'to  doubt  whether  any  limit  can  be  set  to  the  possible 
perversion  which  a  text  may  suffer  at  the  hands  of  a  repor- 
ter'.2 But  in  Hamlet^  as  in  other  bad  Quartos,  we  have  to 
reckon  with  a  certain  amount  of  blank  verse,  which  does  not 
rest  upon  anything  in  Q2  and  F,  and  is  plainly  un-Shake- 
spearean.  To  call  these  passages  *pre-Shakespearean'  is  to 
beg  a  question,  but  they  are  not  in  Shakespeare's  manner, 
although  they  might  still  be  in  that  of  others,  when  he  was 
writing  Hamlet.  They  are  mostly  short  passages  distri- 
buted amongst  the  reported  matter,  especially  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  play.  And  they  are  often  difficult  to  distinguish 
from  the  reporter's  fakings.  One  is  certainly  tempted  to 
find  patches  of  an  alien  hand  or  hands  in  the  whole  or  parts 
of  ill  65-70,  ix.  50-6,  100-9,  x.  1-12,  xi.  37-41,  51-8, 
90-5,  104-7,  155-60,  xiii.  41-4,  xvii,  xviii.  109-23,  and 
perhaps  in  smaller  fragments  elsewhere.  The  Horatio- 
Queen  scene  (cf.  supra}  may  be  disregarded.  That  is  no 
doubt  un-Shakespearean,  but  due  to  an  alteration.  It  is  no 
doubt  arguable  that  both  in  this  scene  and  in  xL  90-5, 
104—7,  the  Queen's  denial  of  complicity  in  the  murder  and 
ranging  of  herself  on  Hamlet's  side  put  her  character  in  a 

1  Eliz.  Stage,  ii.  344.  *  M.L.R.  v.  197. 

£62 


420     .  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

different  light  to  that  of  Q2  and  F.  But  I  doubt  whether 
this  is  more  than  an  accidental  emphasizing  of  Shake- 
speare's own  intention.  There  is  certainly  nothing  in  Q2 
and  F  to  show  that  she  had  any  part  in  or  knowledge  of 
Claudius's  crime.  In  fact  she  shows  no  sign  of  disturbance 
in  the  play-scene,  and  she  was  certainly  not  a  Lady 
Macbeth. 

The  un-Shakespearean  matter  in  Qi  and  the  know- 
ledge which  we  have  for  Hamlet,  as  we  have  not  in  the 
cases  of  the  other  bad  Quartos,  that  an  earlier  play  on  the 
subject  has  been  lost,  are  the  main  supports  to  an  alterna- 
tive reconstruction  of  the  textual  history,  which  has  its 
most  elaborate  statement  in  Wilson's  papers  of  1918. 
He  thinks  that  the  reporter  did  no  more  than  make 
additions  to  an  early  Hamlet  text.  This  was  an  abridged 
transcript  for  provincial  use  from  the  old  play  as  partly 
revised  by  Shakespeare.  The  revision  'had  not  extended 
much  beyond  the  Ghost-scenes'.  The  original  manuscript 
remained  available  for  a  subsequent  further  revision  by 
Shakespeare  into  the  Hamlet  of  Q2  and  F.  In  this  the 
reporter  acted  not  only  Voltimand  and  Marcellus,  but  also 
other  small  parts,  perhaps  a  Player,  the  Second  Grave- 
digger,  Reynaldo,  the  Priest,  Fortinbras's  Captain,  and 
the  English  Ambassador;  and  from  his  memories  of  the 
scenes  in  which  these  occur  and  such  other  fragments  as 
he  could  pick  up  at  the  stage-door,  he  attempted  to  supply 
the  gaps  left  by  abridgement  in  the  manuscript.  Of  other 
scenes  he  knew  nothing,  and  here  we  get  in  Qi  bits  of  the 
old  play  not  reached  by  Shakespeare's  first  revision.  This 
is  of  course  all  on  the  lines  of  Wilson  and  Pollard's  general 
theory  (cf.  p.  155)  as  to  the  genesis  of  the  bad  Quartos. 
Apart  from  the  general  difficulties  which  I  feel  about  that 
theory,  I  think  that  the  application  of  it  to  Hamlet  is  in- 
adequate, in  that  I  find  constant  traces  both  of  the  reporter 
and  of  Shakespeare  in  scenes,  such  as  those  of  Ophelia's 
madness,  which,  according  to  Wilson,  Shakespeare  had 
not  yet  revised,  and  the  reporter  could  not  get  at.  Nor  do  I 
believe  that,  what  with  performances  and  what  with 
rehearsals,  a  company  could  in  fact  effectively  prevent  an 


Chap.  IX  HAMLET  421 

actor  from  seeing  any  part  of  a  play  that  he  wanted  to  see. 
I  have  not  space  to  follow  here  all  the  details  of  Wilson's 
ingenious  argument.  But  he  is  clearly  right  in  calling 
attention  to  the  typographical  resemblance,  especially  as 
regards  orthography,  between  the  earlier  pages  of  Qi  and 
Q2 .  I  do  not  find  the  same  cogency  in  his  arguments  from 
a  similar  use,  but  at  different  points,  of  quotation-marks 
and  brackets,  or  from  a  concurrence  in  misprints,  which 
do  not  seem  to  me  to  be  misprints.  Wilson  explains  the 
resemblance  by  a  'meticulous*  care  in  the  writer  of  the 
early  transcript  to  follow  exactly  the  copy  before  him. 
But  was  an  Elizabethan  transcriber  ever  'meticulous* 
about  spelling?  Possibly  an  attempt  to  begin  the  setting- 
up  of  Q2,  as  in  the  case  of  Romeo  and  Juliet^  upon  an  ex- 
ample of  Qi,  is  the  more  plausible  conjecture.  If  so,  the 
attempt  was  probably  very  soon  abandoned. 

I  have  no  desire  to  be  dogmatic  upon  a  very  obscure 
question,  and  even  if  one  does  not  accept  Wilson's  view  as 
it  stands,  some  contamination  of  Qi  by  the  old  play  is  of 
course  a  possibility.  The  un-Shakespearean  element  rather 
predominantly  affects  scenes  in  which  the  Queen  is  present. 
I  have  sometimes  thought  that  the  reporter  might  have 
been  the  Queen,  as  a  boy,  in  the  old  play,  and  helped 
himself  out  with  memories  of  that.  Certainly  one  ought 
not  to  bring  in  an  expensive  hack-poet  for  a  surreptitious 
enterprise,  of  which  the  profits  could  not  be  great.  But 
there  is  another  alternative.  The  belief  that  Kyd  wrote  the 
old  Hamlet  has  led  to  much  search  for  Kydian  parallels  in 
Qi,  and  even  in  Q2.  They  do  not  amount  to  much, 
except  in  the  case  of  the  Spanish  Tragedy.  Those  to 
i  Jeronimo  are  irrelevant.  The  searchers  have  taken  it 
for  Kyd's  in  error,  and  the  play  only  exists  in  a  text,  itself 
probably  reported,  of  1605.*  There  is  only  one  to 
Sfanish  Tragedy  in  Q2,  and  that  is  not  a  mere  echo.  In 
iii.  2.  304  Hamlet's 

For  if  the  King  like  not  the  Comedie, 
Why  then  belike  he  likes  it  not  perdy. 

1  Ettz.  Stage,  iv.  23. 


422  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

is  clearly  deliberate  burlesque  of  Spanish  Tragedy^  iv. 
i.  196, 

And  if  the  world  like  not  this  Tragedie, 

Hard  is  the  hap  of  olde  Hieronimo, 

just  as  iii.  2.  264  'The  croaking  raven  doth  bellow  for 
revenge*  is  deliberately  burlesqued  from  True  Tragedy  of 
Richard  III,  1892, 

The  screeking  Rauen  sits  croking  for  reuenge. 
Whole  heads  of  beasts  comes  bellowing  for  reuenge. 

But  in  Qi,  ix.  in  is  comparable  to  Sp.  Tr.  ii.  i.  26;  xi. 
106-7  to  iv.  i.  46-7;  xiii.  122  to  ii.  4.  20;  xv.  13  to  iv. 
i.  178;  xv.  14-15,  37toiv.  1.74,  126;  xv.  53  to  11.5.23; 
xv.  54  to  ii.  5. 41 ;  xvi.  1 64  to  iii.  14. 148 ;  xvii.  8-9  to  iii.  14. 
1 54—5.  These  are  not  all  very  close,  but  in  bulk  they  seem 
to  establish  some  echoing  of  Spanish  Tragedy  in  Qi. 
But  other  plays,  not  Kyd's,  are  also  echoed,  Hen.  V^  ii.  2. 
12,  58  in  xi.  156, 159,  and  Dekker's  Satiromastix,  ii.  2.  29 
in  xviii.  8,  35.  Is  not  the  explanation  the  same  in  all  these 
cases,  that  the  reporter,  especially  towards  the  end  of  the 
play,  when  he  was  growing  tired  or  impatient,  has  helped 
out  his  failing  memory  with  scraps  from  recent  pieces 
familiar  to  him  on  the  stage?  And  if  so,  of  course,  he  may 
also  have  drawn  upon  plays  not  known  to  us.  Henry  Fand 
Satiromastix  were  Chamberlain's  plays  of  1599  and  1601 
respectively.  Spanish  Tragedy  was  revived  by  the  Admiral's 
men  in  1 602,  but  also,  in  all  probability  (cf.  p.  148),  by  the 
Chamberlain's  about  the  same  time. 

B.B.  has  only  come  down  in  a  text  of  1710,  but  it  may 
be  derived  from  a  Tragoedia  von  Hamlet  einen  printzen  in 
Dennemark,  played  by  John  Green's  company  at  Dresden 
in  1626,  and  possibly  at  Danzig  in  I6I6.1  I  believe 
that  it  throws  no  light  on  the  early  Hamlet^  being 
founded  on  an  acting  version  of  Shakespeare's  play  closely 
related  to  that  underlying  Qi.  It  cannot  be  from  Qi 
itself,  since  it  echoes  many  passages  which  are  in  Q2  and 
F,  and  must  have  been  missed  by  the  Qi  reporter.  Its 
source  had  diverged  slightly  less  from  the  common  trans- 

1  ESz.  Stagey  ii,  286;  Herz  92. 


Chap.  IX  HAMLET  423 

cript  than  that  of  Qi.  It  had  the  name  Corambus,  but  it 
also  had  still  the  Hamlet  and  Horatio  episode  from  v.  2.  i- 
74  of  the  original.  B.B.  itself  has  been  much  perverted  by 
the  introduction  of  German  themes  and  a  farcical  wooing 
of  Ophelia  by  a  Phantasmo,  who  represents  Osric.  A 
Senecan  prologue  has  been  prefixed,  which  is  inappro- 
priate to  the  play  as  it  stands,  since  it  introduces  a  motive 
of  jealousy  between  the  King  and  Queen  not  there  used. 
There  are  only  two  or  three  passages  on  which  any 
reasonable  case  for  a  pre-Shakespearean  origin  could  be 
based.  In  iii.  10,  Hamlet  bids  the  King  send  him  'to 
Portugal,  so  that  I  may  never  come  back  again*,  and  this 
has  been  held  to  be  an  allusion  to  the  disastrous  English 
expedition  of  1589.*  But  it  may  just  as  well  be  of  much 
later  origin.  Germany  had  been  interested  in  Portugal,  for 
example,  during  the  war  of  Portuguese  independence  in 
1 66 1  and  that  of  the  Spanish  succession  in  1704.  It  has 
also  been  suggested  that  Hamlet's  reference  (ii.  5)  to  his 
father's  guards  as  an  obstacle  stands  nearer  to  Belleforest 
(cf.  infra)  than  to  Shakespeare,  and  that  his  '.crocodile's 
tears'  (iii.  5)  are  Belleforest's  'pleur  dissimule*.  But  it  is 
not  possible  to  build  an  argument  for  a  source  upon  such 
obvious  ideas. 

There  is  not  much  evidence  as  to  the  precise  date  of 
Hamlet.  The  reference  by  Harvey  (App.  B,  no.  xvii) 
justifies  putting  it  after  the  publication  of  Speght's  Chaucer 
(1598)  and  almost  certainly  before  the  death  of  Essex  in 
February  1601.  Although  'innovation'  may  mean  a 
political  uprising,  I  do  not  think  (cf.  p.  65)  that  it  does  in 
ii.  2,  348,  or  that  there  is  any  allusion  here  to  the  Essex 
revolt.  Lawrence  2  may  be  right  in  thinking  that  in  'the 
humorous  man  shall  end  his  part  in  peace'  (ii.  2.  335)  we 
have  one  to  the  trouble  caused  by  the  original  ending  of 
Jonson's  E.M.O.  late  in  1599.*  The  citation  of  a  phrase 
in  Qi  of  Merry  Wives  of  Windsor  (q.v.)  gives  us  reason  to 
suppose  that  Hamlet  preceded  that  play.  To  put  Hamlet 
in  1 600  would  not  be  counter  to  any  indication  of  style 
or  allusion,  and  would  bring  it  near  Julius  Caesar  as  a 

1  Cheyney,  i.  153.  2  SASs  WorlsAop,  101.  3  EIxz.  Stage^aL  361. 


424  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

companion  study  of  tragic  idealism.  The  performances 
at  Oxford  and  Cambridge  mentioned  on  the  title-page  of 
Qi  are  likely,  in  view  of  the  date  of  the  S.R.  entry,  to 
have  been  earlier  than  1603-4,  when  the  King's  came  to 
Oxford.  An  unnamed  company  came  in  1599—1600, 
and  three  in  1600-1.  A  revival  at  court  seems  to  have 
been  contemplated  about  1619  and  there  was  another  in 
1637  (App.  D). 

A  vast  deal  of  erudition  has  been  devoted  to  the  source, 
but  most  of  it  bears  upon  the  Scandinavian,  Irish,  and  con- 
ceivably Greek  origins  of  the  story  of  Hamlet,  as  found  in 
the  twelfth-century  Historiae  Danicae  (pr.  1514)  of  Saxo 
Grammaticus.    Thence  it  came  into  P.  de  Belleforest, 
Histoires  Tragiques,  v  (1576),  and  from  this  version  the 
play  derives.  It  was  translated  in  The  Hystorie  of  Hamblet 
(1608),  which  has  a  tag  or  two  clearly  from  the  play  itself. 
No  earlier  edition  is  known,  but  in  any  case  it  is  likely  that 
the  old  play  was  intermediate  between  Belleforest  and 
Shakespeare,  and  some  writers  have  suspected  that  an 
Italian  tragedy  may  also  have  intervened.   Whether  the 
old  Hamlet  was  by  Kyd,  it  seems  to  me  impossible  to  say; 
Nashe's  reference  is  quite  inconclusive  and  the  verbal 
parallels  are  still  more  so.  There  are  clearly  resemblances 
of  dramatic  technique  between  Hamlet,  as  we  have  it,  and 
the  Spanish  Tragedy.  Both  use  a  ghost,  a  play  within  a  play, 
madness,  a  pair  of  sons  seeking  revenge  for  their  fathers, 
a  woman's  suicide.  This  duplication  or  motives  may  really 
be  held  to  point  to  the  probability  either  of  a  single  plotter 
or  of  two  different  plotters,  according  to  taste.  Nor  can  we 
say  how  far  the  divergences  from  Belleforest  are  due  to  the 
old  play  and  how  far  to  Shakespeare.  All  that  we  know 
about  the  old  play  is  that  there  was  a  ghost  in  it,  who 
called  'Hamlet,  revenge!'  Robertson,  who  makes  little  of 
the  reporter,  finds  a  considerable  Kyd  element  both  in 
Qi  and  Q2,  and  thinks  that  Chapman  rewrote  the  inter- 
lude and  the  scene  (ii.  i.  1-74)  between  Polonius  and 
Reynaldo,  and  perhaps  contributed  the  Pyrrhus  speech 
(ii.  2. 474-519)  from  an  early  classical  tragedy  of  his  own. 
This  speech  has  also  been  claimed  both  as  early  work  of 


Chap.  IX  HAMLET  425 

Shakespeare's  own  and  as  a  parody  of  Marlowe  and 
Nashe's  Dido.1  It  is  simpler,  and  equally  plausible,  to 
regard  both  it  and  the  interlude  as  written  with  the  rest  of 
Hamlet^  in  styles  deliberately  differentiated  from  that  of 
the  ordinary  dialogue.  They  are,  of  course,  not  completely 
serious.  It  is  only  by  accident  (cf.  vol.  ii,  p.  3)  that  the  name 
Hamlet  coincides  with  one  familiar  in  Warwickshire,  but 
of  different  derivation,  but  one  may  fancy  (cf.  p.  35)  that 
the  setting  of  Ophelia's  death  owed  something  to  that  of 
Katharine  Hamlett  in  the  Avon  on  17  December  1579. 
The  names  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern  have  been 
much  discussed.  They  are  those  of  well-known  sixteenth- 
century  Danish  families,  who  were  connected  by  marriage. 
Both  are  said  to  be  found  in  the  official  documents  of  the 
University  of  Wittenberg,  and  both  appear,  in  the  forms 
Rosenkrans  and  Guldensteren,  among  the  ancestral 
names  on  a  portrait  of  the  astronomer  Tycho  Brahe,  en- 
graved by  Jacob  de  Gheyn  at  some  date  earlier  than  1602 
from  a  painting  of  1586.  I  cannot  verify  the  statement  of 
a  descendant,  that  representatives  of  both  families  came  to 
England  on  a  diplomatic  mission  'in  the  last  decade  of  the 
sixteenth  century'.2  There  seems  to  have  been  no  such 
mission.  There  was,  however,  one  in  1 603  for  the  corona- 
tion 3  and  in  May  and  June  of  that  year  a  Laxman 
Gyldenstiern  was  travelling  in  England.4  This,  however, 
is  too  late  to  affect  Hamlet.  Shakespeare  may  have  heard 
the  names  from  the  players  who  went  to  Denmark 
in  1 586.5  There  is  no  evidence  for  the  conjecture  that  he 
himself  visited  HelsingSr. 

XXIII.  THE  MERRY  WIVES  OF  -WINDSOR 

MS.  H.l?.,ReKques,  72,  described  a  copy  which  he  believed 
to  have  been  written  'during  the  Commonwealth  for  some 
private  playhouse',  and  possibly  to  record  stage-readings, 
not  in  Fi.  It  was  afterwards  at  Warwick  Castle. 


Etix.  Stage,  iii.  426.  *  R.O.  Deputy  Keeper's  Reports,  xlvi, 

T.L.S.  28  Jan.  1926.  App.  ii.  69;  P.P. x. 47. 

s  Efa.  Stage,  ii.  272$  cf.  p.  39. 


1 
T.L 

.  x.  77 


426  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

[S.R.  1602.]  1 8  January.  John  Busby.  Entred  for  his 
copie  vnder  the  hand  of  master  Seton,  A  booke  called 
An  excellent  and  pleasant  conceited  commedie  of  Sir 
John  Faulstof  and  the  merry  wyves  of  Windesor  vjd. 
Arthur  Johnson.  Entred  for  his  Copye  by  assignement 
from  John  Busbye,  A  booke  Called  an  excellent  and 
pleasant  conceyted  Comedie  of  Sir  John  Faulstafe  and 
the  merye  wyves  of  Windsor.  vjd.  (Arber,  iii.  199). 

[Greg  (4  Library,  vii.  378)  notes  that  the  original  entry  and  that  of 
the  assignment  are  written  in  different  hands.] 

[Qi.  1602.]  A  Most  pleasaunt  and  excellent  conceited 
Comedie,  of  Syr  lohn  Falstaffe,  and  the  merrie  Wiues  of 
Windsor  Entermixed  with  sundrie  variable  and  pleasing 
humors,  of  Syr  Hugh  the  Welch  Knight,  Justice  Shallow, 
and  his  wise  Cousin  M.  Slender.  With  the  swaggering 
vaine  of  Auncient  Pistoll,  and  Corporall  Nym.  By  William 
Shakespeare.  As  it  hath  bene  diuers  times  Acted  by  the 
right  Honorable  my  Lord  Chamberlaines  seruants.  Both 
before  her  Maiestie,  and  else-where.  [Ornament]  London 
Printed  by  T(homas>  C(reede)  for  Arthur  lohnson, 
and  are  to  be  sold  at  his  shop  in  Powles  Church-yard, 
at  the  signe  of  the  Flower  de  Leuse  and  the  Crowne. 
1602.  [Head-title]  A  pleasant  conceited  Comedie  of 
Syr  lohn  Falstaffe,  and  the  merry  Wiues  of  Windsor. 
[Running-title']  A  pleasant  Comedie,  of  the  merry  wiues 

£  TTT*       J 

of  Windsor, 

Facsimile.  W.  Griggs  (1881,  Sh.  Q.  vi,  ed.  P.  A.  Daniel). 

Type-Facsimile,  W.  W.  Greg  (igio> 

Reprints.  J.  O.  Halliwell-Phillipps  (1842,  Sh.  Soc.)\  W.  C.  Hazlitt 
(1875,  Sh.  Library,  Pt.  n.  ii)5  W.  A.  Wright  (1893,  Cambridge  Sh. 
ix.  421), 

[Q2.  1619/1  A  Most  pleasant  and  excellent  conceited 
Comedy,  of  Sir  John  Falstaffe,  and  the  merry  Wiues  of 
Windsor.  With  the  swaggering  vaine  of  Ancient  Pis- 
toll,  and  Corporall  Nym.  Written  by  W.  Shakespeare. 
[William  Jaggard's  device  (McKerrow  283)]  Printed  for 
Arthur  Johnson,  1619.  [Head-title]  A  Pleasant  conceited 
Comedie  of  Sir  John  Falstaffe,  and  the  merry  Wives  of 


Chap.  IX        THE  MERRY  WIVES  OF  WINDSOR  427 

Windsor.     [Running-title']  A   pleasant   Comedy,   of  the 

merry  Wives  of  Windsor. 

[On  the  misdating,  cf.  p.  1 33.] 

Reprint.  G.  Steevens  (1766,  Twenty  of  the  Plays  of  Shakespeare). 

[F i.  1623.]  [Catalogue]  The  Merry  Wiues  of  Windsor. 
[Comedies,  pp.  39-60,  sign.  D  2-E  6V.    Head-  and  Run- 
ning-titles] The  Merry  Wiues  of  Windsor. 
[Acts  and  sec.  marked.] 

[S.R.  1630.]  29  Januarii  1629.  Master  Meighen. 
Assigned  ouer  vnto  him  by  master  Johnson  and  Consent  of 
Master  Purfoote  Warden,  All  the  said  master  Johnsons 
estate  in  the  4  Copies  hereafter  menconed  . . .  The  merry 
Wives  of  Winsor  (Arber  iv.  227). 

[Q3-  1630.]  T.  H.  for  R.  Meighen. 
Parallel-Text.  A.  Morgan  (1888,  Bankside). 
Modern  Editions.  H.  C.  Hart  (1904,  Arden}\  A.  T.  Quiller-Couch 
and  J.  D.  Wilson  (1921,  C.C7.P.);  G.  van  Santvoord  (1922,  Yale}. 
Dissertations.  J.  O.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  An  Account  of  the  only  known 
Manuscript  of  SA.'s  Plays  (1843),  The  U.W.  (1850,  New Boke,  82);  W. 
Vollhardt,  Ein  italienischer  Falstaff  (1907,  Studien  zur  vergleichenden 
Literaturgeschichte,  vii.  no);  J.  D.  Bruce,  Two  Notes  on  M.W.  (1912, 
M.L.R.  vii.  239);  J.  M.  Robertson,  The  Problem  ofM.W.  (1917,  Bh.Ass^\ 
A.  W.  Pollard  and  J.  D.  Wilson,  The  'Stolne  and  Surreptitious*  Shn.  Texts. 
M.W.  (1919,  Aug.  7,  !F.I.£.);  R.  S.  Forsythe,  A  Plautine  Source  ofM.W. 
(1920,  M.P.  xviii.  401). 

All  discussions  of  Merry  Wives  relate  it  to  certain 
historical  incidents  which  were  brought  to  light  in  W.  B. 
Rye,  England  as  seen  by  Foreigners  (1865),  Iv.  In  1592 
Frederick,  Count  of  Mompelgart,  and  heir-presump- 
tive to  his  cousin  Lewis,  Duke  of  Wiirttemberg,  visited 
England.  Rye  translates  the  relevant  part  of  his  Baden- 
fahrt  as  written  by  his  secretary  Jacob  Rathgeb  and 
printed  in  1602.  He  was  in  the  country  from  August  9 
to  September  5,  saw  London,  spent  August  17-19  with 
the  Queen  at  Reading  and  visited  among  other  places 
Windsor  (Aug.  19-21),  Uxbridge  (Aug.  25-6),  Oxford 
(Aug.  26-8),  and  Cambridge  (Aug.  29-30).  At  Oxford  he 
was  delayed  because  his  post-horses  werewornout,  andcould 
not  be  replaced,  even  at  double  the  normal  cost.  When  he 


428  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

finally  left  London,  however,  he  had  a  passport  from  the 
Lord  Admiral,  directing  that  he  should  be  furnished  with 
post-horses  and  shipping  and  'pay  nothing  for  the  same'. 
Apparently  the  Queen  gave  him  hopes  of  the  Garter,  and 
after  his  return  to  Germany  he  wrote  several  letters  re- 
minding her  of  this,  to  which  she  returned  characteristic  and 
evasive  answers.  On  8  August  1593  he  became  Duke  of 
Wttrttemberg.  In  1 59  5  he  sent  an  ambassador,  John  Jacob 
Breuning  von  Buchenbach,  to  urge  his  claim.  Rye  quotes 
Breuning's  narrative  of  his  mission  at  second-hand,  but  it 
was  printed  by  A.  Schlossberger,1  and  is  translated  in  V.  von 
Klarwill,  Queen  Elizabeth  and  Some  Foreigners  (i  92  8),  3  57. 
Breuning  was  in  England  from  March  26  to  May  23.  He 
was  at  St.  George's  Feast  on  April  23,  and  visited  Windsor 
and  other  places  during  May  6-8.  The  duke  had  in- 
structed him  to  buy  some  horses,  but  he  found  them 
expensive,  and  was  nearly  cheated  with  a  spavined  grey. 
He  was  much  embarrassed  by  a  certain  John  Henry 
Stamler,  who  had  been  for  nearly  a  year  in  England, 
trying  to  obtain  remission  of  export  duty  on  a  thousand 
bales  of  cloth.  It  was  thought  an  unworthy  request  and 
had  caused  much  comment.  Stamler  told  Breuning  that 
he  was  not  a  regular  agent  of  the  duke,  but  had  a  special 
mission.  Here  the  duke  notes  on  the  report,  Tut  a  rope 
round  his  neck*.  Breuning  suspected  a  fraud,  and  warned 
Essex  against  Stamler.  Stamler  produced  copies  of  a  ducal 
letter  of  20  February  1 594  (now  in  Cott.  Vety.  F.  iii,  f.  97) 
asking  for  the  export,  and  others  of  12  December  1594, 
naminghimas  the  agent,  and  offering  Burghley  (LansJ.  MS. 
Ixxvi,  68),  a  gold  chain  for  his  support.  Essex  obtained  the 
original  of  the  letter  of  February  20  and  the  date  proved  to 
have  been  altered  from  1593  to  1 594.  Ultimately  Stamler 
admitted  that  his  own  commission  was  only  from  the 
ducal  paymaster  at  Emden,  and  that  the  letters  were  not 
directed  by  the  duke,  but  written  and  sealed  by  his  secre- 
tary, who  hoped  himself  to  profit  by  the  cloth.  H.P.  ii. 
266  says  that  Stamler  was  also  engaged  in  'nefarious 
equine  transactions',  but  I  think  this  only  rests  on  a  state- 

Stuttgart,  Bibliothd  des  Litterarischen  Verewy  Ixxxi. 


Chap.  IX       THE  MERRY  WIVES  OF  WINDSOR  429 

ment  by  Breuning  that,  as  he  heard  that  Stamler  was  try- 
ing to  buy  a  horse,  he  suspected  that  he  meant  to  take 
flight,  and  had  him  watched.  The  duke  got  no  satisfaction 
from  Breuning's  mission.  He  wrote  further  letters  and 
did  his  best  to  explain  the  Stamler  affair.  He  was  in  fact 
elected  to  the  Order  on  23  April  1597,  and  sent  a  second 
embassy  in  1598  to  express  his  gratitude.1  But  in  spite 
of  a  protest  in  January  1599  and  a  third  embassy  in  1600 
he  still  could  not  get  his  insignia,  and  the  investiture  was 
left  for  James  to  grant  in  November  1603. 

The  relation  between  Q  and  F  has  been  minutely 
examined  in  the  admirable  study  by  Greg.  F  is  'a  distinctly 
good,  though  demonstrably  not  perfect  text'.  There  is 
nothing  to  show  whether  the  manuscript  used  was  of  a 
playhouse  or  a  literary  type.  The  stage-directions  are  very 
slight.  Only  the  final  exits  of  each  scene  are  noted,  and 
except  for  a  single  'Enter  Fairies'  (v.  5. 41),  all  the  charac- 
ters of  each  scene  are  listed  in  initial  stage-directions, 
according  to  the  order  in  which  they  enter,  but  not  that  in 
which  they  speak.  Greg  explains  this  as  an  unhappy 
application  by  a  'devil  charged  with  the  duty  of  preparing 
the  play  for  press'  of  'the  Jonsonian  method  of  character 
indication  to  the  English  method  of  scene  division'. 
Wilson  regards  it  as  a  case  of  'assembling'  from  'parts' 
(cf.  p.  153), 

Q  is  obviously  a  'garbled  and  corrupt'  text.  The  most 
obvious  thing  about  it  is  the  presence  of  a  reporter.  'The 
playhouse  thief  reveals  himself  in  every  scene',  bringing 
about  'gross  corruption,  constant  mutilation,  meaningless 
inversion  and  clumsy  transposition'.  Scenes  iv.  i  and  v. 
1-4  of  F  are  omitted  altogether,  and  there  are  consider- 
able omissions  in  other  scenes,  some  of  which  cause  sense- 
lacunae.  Scenes  iii.  4  and  iii.  5  appear  in  inverted  order. 
Particularly  significant  of  a  reporter  are  numerous  'anti- 
cipations and  recollections'  (cf.  p.  157)  of  passages  from 
earlier  and  later  scenes.  Moreover,  there  are  similar 
transferences  from  other  plays  (sc.  v.  352  from  i  Hen.  IVy 
ii.  4.  366;  sc.  v.  363  from  2  Hen.  I7y  v.  3.  124;  sc.  xiii. 

1  G.  F.  Bdtz,  Memorials  of  the  Garter,  clxxxiii. 


430  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

1 1 88  from  Ham.  v.  i.  312  in  its  Q2  and  F  form).  The 
report  degenerates  from  iii.  3  onwards  and  in  iii.  4;  iv.  4 
and  v.  5  are  passages  of  un-Shakespearean  verse.  Daniel 
tKought  that  the  reporter  may  have  been  the  same  who  was 
responsible  for  Henry  V>  but  that  is  of  a  rather  different  type, 
and  the  common  abnormal  spellings  cited  by  Daniel  pro- 
bably point  to  the  press  of  Thomas  Creede.  Greg  has 
shown  that  in  Merry  Wives  the  reporter  was  almost  cer- 
tainly an  actor  who  played  the  Host,  and  reconstructed  the 
play  from  memory.  He  appears  in  eight  scenes,  and  in  six 
of  these  not  only  his  own  part,  although  he  was  evidently 
not  word  perfect,  but  also  the  parts  of  others  on  the  stage 
with  him,  are  in  unusual  agreement  with  F.  In  iv.  5,  6, 
however,  he  is  (cf.  infra]  less  successful.  Act  v,  in  which 
he  does  not  appear,  shows  the  maximum  divergence  from  F. 
Wilson  agrees  that  the  Host  had  a  hand  in  Q,  but  thinks 
that  bits  of  the  text  must  be  from  a  transcript,  on  account 
of  some  typographical  resetnblances,  which  he  perhaps 
exaggerates,  in  punctuation  and  capitalization  to  the 
corresponding  bits  of  F;  and  that  the  transcription  may 
have  been  from  'parts,'  because  of  the  repeated,  although 
not  invariable  appearance  of  prose  in  capitalized  lines  of 
irregular  length.  But  if  'parts',  as  is  possible  (cf.  p.  183), 
were  written  in  this  way,  the  Host  would  have  been 
familiar  with  it,  and  might  quite  well  adopt  it  in  writing 
out  his  report.  In  F  Dr.  Caius  has  (i.  4)  a  room  with  a 
closet  behind  it.  In  Q  this  becomes  a  shop  with  a  counting- 
house  behind  and  a  stall  in  front.  Perhaps  it  was  so  repre- 
sented on  the  stage.  The  Q  stage-directions  are  full  and 
often  descriptive  of  action,  and  do  not  show  the  abnor- 
mality of  those  in  F. 

Greg  considers  the  possibility  of  cutting  and  perhaps 
consequent  adaptation  for  the  performance  represented 
by  Q,  and  so  far  as  the  greater  part  of  the  play  is  concerned, 
finds  no  satisfactory  evidence  for  it.  Some  of  the  'anticipa- 
tions and  recollections'  are  from  scenes  omitted  by  Q, 
and  as  there  are  no  obvious  reasons  why  an  adapter  should 
transfer  the  passages,  it  seems  likely  that  the  scenes  were 
in  fact  played.  The  parts  of  Robin  in  ii.  2  and  iii.  2,  3, 


Chap.  IX       THE  MERRY  WIVES  OF  WINDSOR  431 

and  of  William  in  iv.  I  may,  as  Greg  thinks,  have  been 
deliberately  cut  out.  But  Robin's  part  is  very  small  any- 
how, and  I  think  an  oblivion  of  him  by  the  reporter  not 
impossible.  The  reporter  may  also  have  fought  shy  of 
William's  Latin.  But  it  is  quite  possible  that  this  scene 
was  only  intended  for  the  court  performance,  where  it 
would  please  Elizabeth's  pedantry.  The  omissions  in  i.  i, 
where  Q  does  not  give  the  bit  on  the  Lucy  arms,  and  at 
the  beginning  of  Act  v  are  considerable.  But  these 
scenes  precede  or  follow  the  concern  of  the  Host  with  the 
play. 

On  the  other  hand,  Greg  finds  traces  of  more  than  one 
revision  of  the  play.  The  most  important  of  these  he 
thinks  to  have  been  antecedent  to  both  the  Q  and  the  F 
text,  and  to  have  involved  two  factors.  One  was  an 
attempt  'to  modify  and  largely  to  remove'  a  horse-stealing 
plot,  of  which  traces  remain,  and  which  had  some  con- 
nexion with  the  Count  of  MOmpelgart.  The  motive 
appears  in  iv.  3 ;  iv.  5.  64-95  > anc*  *v-  6-  i~5«  All  we  learn 
is  that  three  Germans,  who  had  lodged  for  a  week  at  the 
Garter  Inn,  borrowed  three  horses  from  the  Host  to  meet 
their  duke  who  was  coming  to  court;  that  subsequently 
the  Host  was  informed  by  Bardolph,  Evans,  and  Caius 
that  there  was  no  duke,  and  that  the  Germans  were 
cozeners  who  had  run  off  with  his  horses,  and  had  also 
tricked  all  the  hosts  of  Reading,  Maidenhead,  and  Cole- 
brook;  and  that  he  was  left  with  a  heavy  loss.  Here,  as 
elsewhere,  Q  is  a  mere  perversion  of  F,  with  the  exception 
that  Evans  substitutes  (iv.  5.  79)  'cosen  garmombles'  for 
the  *Cozen-Iermans'  of  F.  The  meaning  of  'garmomble' 
is  'confusion*  or  in  a  literal  sense  'bruise',  but  it  is  reason- 
able to  see  a  pun  on  Mdmpelgart's  name.1  Greg  thinks 
that  there  must  have  been  more  in  it,  that  the  plot  must 
have  originally  contributed  to  the  denouement  of  v.  5,  and 
that  the  horses  arrested  for  FalstafFs  debt  (v.  5.  1 18)  and 
the  'postmaster's  boy*  found  in  the  guise  of  a  fairy  (v.  5. 
199)  must  have  had  some  connexion  with  it  A  revision 
left  the  story  in  mid-air,  and  if  the  actors  learnt  the  altered 

1  J.  D.  Bruce  in  MJ.JL  vii.  240. 


432  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

matter  badly,  may  also  explain  the  comparative  breakdown 
of  the  Host  in  reporting  iv.  5.  I  am  bound  to  say  that  I  am 
very  sceptical  about  this.  Falstaff's  horses  were  not  the 
Host's,  and  it  was  the  wives  who  plotted  (ii.  I.-96)  to 
keep  him  dangling  in  Windsor  until  he  had  pawned  them, 
Windsor  must  have  been  full  of  postmaster's  boys.  If 
the  censor  intervened,  why  did  he  allow  the  Germans  and 
their  duke  to  remain  in  the  play  at  all  ?  There  they  are, 
quite  recognizable,  and  no  doubt  they  added  considerably 
to  the  amusement  of  any  Garter  knights  present  at  the 
court  performance  and  familiar  with  the  Duke  of  Wiirttem- 
berg's  efforts  to  get  his  insignia.  'Garmombles'  may  be  a 
bit  of  'gag*  in  any  case;  there  are  probably  others  (sc.  vii. 
704 ;  sc.  ix.  8 1 9-20 ;  sc.  xviii.  1 522)  in  the  Q  text.  Certainly 
the  episode  is  left  in  the  air.  So  also  is  that  of  Shallow  and 
his  stolen  deer.  The  play  was  written  in  haste  and  its  struc- 
ture suffered.  Of  this  haste,  or  of  Shakespeare's  careless- 
ness, there  are  other  indications  in  the  time  confusion  of 
iii.  5  and  in  the  variant  personal  names  of  Thomas  (i.  i .  46) 
and  George  (ii.  1.153;  v.  5.  213)  for  Page.  Imagina- 
tions less  bridled  than  Greg's  have  essayed  to  recover  his 
lost  story.  Hart  thinks  that  Evans  and  Caius  plotted  a 
revenge  on  the  Host  for  the  mock  duel  into  which  he  had 
led  them,  and  that  the  horse-thieves  were  really  Pistol, 
Nym,  and  Rugby.  This  proves  acceptable  to  Wilson,  who 
adds  that  it  looks  as  if  Ford  and  Shallow  arranged  that 
the  loss  should  ultimately  fall  upon  Falstaff.  I  cannot 
imagine  why  all  this  should  have  been  suppressed. 

The  second  factor  in  Greg's  supposed  revision  is  that 
the  playwright,  obviously  not  Shakespeare,  who  carried  it 
out,  was  instructed  to  provide  two  alternative  endings,  one 
for  the  court,  the  other  for  the  common  stage,  and  that  this 
accounts  for  the  divergence  between  the  Q  and  F  versions 
of  v.  £.  This  is  no  doubt  substantial.  The  'Garter' 
passage  (v.  5.  60-77)  of  F,  particularly  appropriate  to  a 
court  performance,  is  not  in  Q,  and  instead  we  get  a  long 
passage  of  octosyllabic  dialogue,  certainly  not  of  Shake- 
speare's writing.  Part  of  it  echoes  the  F  version,  but 
Falstaff  is  absurdly  described  as  a  'metamorphised  youth', 


Chap.  IX        THE  MERRY  WIVES  OF  WINDSOR  433 

and  there  is  a  completely  irrelevant  passage  about  Serjeants 
and  proctors,  which  reads  like  a  scrap  from  some  popular 
London  poem.  But  Greg's  theory  would  apparently  make 
the  F  version  also  un-Shakespearean,  and  this  I  hesitate 
to  accept.  The  Q  has  un-Shakespearean  verse  also  in  place 
of  iii.  4.  1-2 1  and  iv.  4  of  F,  and  I  take  it  that  the  explana- 
tion is  the  same  in  all  three  cases,  namely  that  the  Host 
had  forgotten  too  much,  and  that  an  attempt  was  made  to 
fill  the  lacunae.  If  the  Host  was  incapable  of  faking  some 
verse  for  himself,  some  one  else  was  called  upon.  I  find 
it  easier  to  suppose  this,  than  to  believe  that  the  same  play- 
wright did  both  the  divergent  versions  in  v.  5,  which  are 
of  very  different  degrees  of  merit. 

Greg  finds  some  traces  of  further  alteration  in  the  F 
text,  at  later  dates.  One  is  of  course  a  partial  excision  of 
oaths.  A  few  passages  containing  minor  variants  between 
Q  and  F,  he  thinks  that  Shakespeare  may  have  touched  up 
at  random  on  the  theatre  copy.  The  strongest  case  for 
this  is  at  ii.  2.  i,  where  Falstaff  says  'I  will  not  lend  thee 
a  penny',  and  Pistol  replies  in  .Q,  'I  will  retort  the  sum  in 
equipage',  but  in  F — 

Why  then  the  world 's  mine  Oyster, 
Which  I  with  sword  will  open. 

that  Q  has  omitted  one  and  F  the  other.  But  ir  so,  both 
must  also  have  omitted  some  intermediate  words  of  Fal- 
stafF,  probably  'Not  a  penny',  which  he  repeats  in  the  next 
line.  This  would  have  been  an  odd  combination  of 
coincidence  and  diversity  in  error,  but  Q  does  seem  here 
and  there  to  retain  an  original  phrase  missed  by  the  F 
printer.  In  one  respect  there  has  clearly  been  revision  at 
some  stage.  In  Q,  the  disguised  Ford  takes  the  name  of 
Brooke,  and  the  connexion  of  meaning  shows  that  this 
was  the  original  name.  In  F,  it  is  altered  consistently  to 
Broome.  This  is,  I  think,  a  bit  of  cautious  censorship. 
Brooke  was  the  family  name  of  that  Lord  Cobham  to  whose 
intervention  the  extrusion  of  Oldcastle  from  Henry  IF  was 
probably  due.  Some  writers,  and  Greg  among  them,  have 
found  allusions  to  Oldcastle  in  Merry  Wives  itself.  At 

3H2.I  p  f 


434  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

iv.  5.  6  the  Host  says  of  Falstaff,  'There 's  his  chamber, 
his  house,  his  castle,  his  standing-bed  and  truckle-bed*. 
This  has  a  good  enough  meaning,  without  any  such 
allusion.  At  i.  3.  2  the  Host  calls  Falstaff  'bully-rook',  and 
no  doubt  in  chess  a  'rook'  is,  and  was  by  the  time  of 
Guillim's  Heraldrie  (i  6 1 1),  a  'castle'.  But  the  Host  applies 
the  same  term  successively  in  ii.  i  to  Page,  Shallow,  and 
Ford. 

If  Oldcastle  were  in  Merry  Wives,  we  should  have  to 
put  the  date  close  to  that  of  Henry  IP \  as  the  Chamberlain's 
men  are  not  likely  to  have  gone  out  of  their  way  later  to 
provoke  a  memory  of  their  indiscretion.     But  Q  contains 
a  transference  (cf.  supra)  from  Hamlet,  and  at  the  same 
time  it  must  rest  on  a  report  of  some  of  the  earliest  per- 
formances, since  Brooke  could  hardly  have  survived  the 
special  review  of  the  play  by  the  Revels  officers  for  the 
court.1    It  seems,  therefore,  that  Merry  Wives  must  be 
later  than  Hamlet,  in  spite  of  the  difference  of  its  tone  from 
that  of  the  comedies  which  immediately  followed.   I  put 
it,  therefore,  in  1600-1.    If  the  death  of  Sir  Thomas 
Lucy  (7  July  1600)  became  known  about  when  it  was 
ready,  that  may  be  the  reason  why  the  'louses'  do  not 
appear  in  Q.     That  the  play  is  in  any  case  later  than 
Henry  V  is  likely,  because  the  description  of  Nym  as 
'corporal'  would  be  meaningless,  if  he  had  not  already 
made  his  appearance  on  the  battle-field.  It  is  of  course  an 
.  irrelevant  tact  that  in  the  biography  of  Falstaff  the  adven- 
tures of  Merry  Wives  must  precede  those  of  Henry  7,  where 
he  dies  and  Pistol  has  married  Mrs.  Quickly.  I  think  we 
may  accept  the  story  of  Elizabeth's  request,  and  suppose 
it  motived  by  Shakespeare's  failure  to  redeem  in  Henry  V 
the  promise  of  a  reintroduction  of  Falstaff  suggested  by 
the  epilogue  to  2  Henry  IV.   The  Garter  passage  suggests 
a  performance  at  Windsor,  where  a  choir  of  boys  would 
be  available  for  the  fairies.   Elizabeth  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  much  at  Windsor  during  the  later  years  of  her 
life,  although  the  rather  scrappy  notices  of  her  movements 
for  some  of  those  years  forbid  one  to  be  positive.  A  short 

*  Cf.£/&.  Stage,  1.22$. 


Chap.  IX       THE  MERRY  WIVES  OF  WINDSOR  435 

visit  is  recorded  in  August  1601,  but  the  Chamber  Accounts 
show  no  payment  for  a  play.1  There  was  a  Garter  installa- 
tion on  26  May  1601,  but  the  Queen  was  not  ordinarily 
present  at  such  ceremonies.2  The  play  was  given  at  court 
on  4  November  1604  and  again  in  1638  (App.  D). 

For  Greg,  as  for  me,  there  is  no  suggestion  or  the  original 
version  of  Merry  Wives  having  been  by  another  hand  than 
Shakespeare's.  But  this  is  not  so  for  Wilson  or  for  Robert- 
son. They  adopt  the  notion  of  Fleay  that  the  Jealous 
Comedy  produced  by  the  Alleyn  company  for  Henslowe  on 
5  January  1593  (App.  D)  may  have  been  an  early  form  of 
Merry  Wives.  It  may,  of  course,  have  been  any  play  with 
jealousy  as  a  prominent  motive  in  it.  Comedy  of  Errors 
(q.v.)  or  another.  But  the  notion  fits  in  with  the  general 
theory  of  Pollard  and  Wilson  (cf,  p.  225)  as  to  a  group  of 
early  plays  abridged  in  1593  for  provincial  use,  and  con- 
tributing, with  a  pirate  actor,  to  the  bad  Quartos.  The 
particular  application  of  this  theory  to  Merry  Wives^  so  far 
as  I  can  piece  it  together  from  Wilson's  edition,  which  is 
not  very  explicit  on  the  point,  and  the  articles  of  1 9 1 9,  is  as 
follows.  The  horse-stealing  plot  must  go  back  to  MOmpel- 
gart's  visit  of  1592  and  a  scandal  due  to  his  'trick  of 
commandeering  horses  under  the  Queen's  warrant'.  As 
to  this  it  must  be  pointed  out  that  there  is  no  evidence  of 
any  such  scandal,  unless  it  is  to  be  found  in  an  allusion  in 
Nashe's  Summers  Last  Will  and  Testament  of  1592  to 
'the  horses  lately  sworn  to  be  stolne'.3  This  is  possible, 
but  Nashe  does  not  connect  the  matter  with  Mfimpelgart. 
The  count  had  a  difficulty  in  getting  post-horses  at  Oxford 
on  August  27.  He  had  presumably  no  warrant  for  their 
impressment  then,  but  on  September  4  he  received  one 
from  the  Lord  Admiral  for  his  return  to  Gravesend.  On 
the  whole,  the  clue  may  just  as  well  lie  in  the  horse- 
dealing  transactions  of  Breuning  or  Stamler  in  1595. 
In  the  development  of  the  play,  eight  stages  are  suggested : 
(i)  The  Jealous  Comedy >  a  piece  of  unknown  authorship  on 
London  citizen-life,  with  a  befooled  lover,  who  was  not  a 

1  Ibid.  iv.  114.  *  G.  F.  Beltz,  Memorials  of  the  Garter >  clxxxiii. 

3  Etiz.  Stage,  iii.  452. 

Ff2 


436  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

fat  knight,  but  a  'simpering  lady-killer',  with  the  charac- 
teristics of  Joseph  Surface;  (ii)  a  provincial  abridgement, 
without,  in  this  case,  any  handling  by  Shakespeare;  (iii) 
a  possible  revision,  still  not  by  Shakespeare,  into  an  'Old- 
castle*  play;  (iv)  a  further  revision  by  Shakespeare,  'per- 
haps with  help  from  others',  to  meet  Elizabeth's  command; 
(v)  an  abridged  playhouse  version  of  this ;  (vi)  a  further 
revision  of  (iv),  involving  alteration  of  the  verse  scenes; 
(vii)  a  further  revision  of  (vi)  at  the  time  of  the  command 
performance;  (viii)  a  possible  abridgement  of  (vii)  for  the 
Jacobean  revival  of  1604.   This  is  very  elaborate,  but  I 
do  not  think  that  stages  (iv)  to  (viii)  are  meant  to  differ 
essentially  from  Greg's  reconstruction.    F  was  based  on 
'parts'  of  (vi),  (vii)  or  (viii),  and  Q,  if  I  understand  Wilson 
correctly,  upon  a  report  of  (v)  by  an  actor,  who  had  'parts' 
of  (iii)  to  fall  back  upon  when  his  memory  gave  out.  But  I 
do  not  quite  understand  why,  if  this  was  so,  he  speaks  (p. 
96)  of  the  'higher  authority  than  has  hitherto  been  sus- 
pected' of  the  Q  version.   Moreover,  one  of  the  passages 
(ii.  2.  4-13),  upon  the  typographical  character  of  which 
(cf.  supra)  he  relies  as  evidence  for  the  use  of  'parts', 
contains  a  reference  to  Nym,  and  if  so,  Nym  must  have 
been  in  the  Jealous  Comedy^  which  is  hardly  consistent 
with  Wilson's  acceptance  of  the  view  (cf.  s.v.  Hen.  V} 
that  he  is  a  satire  on  Ben  Jonson.   However,  the  main 
issue  is  that,  on  Wilson's  theory,  there  are  un-Shake- 
spearean  elements  from  the  Jealous  Comedy  still  surviving 
after  the  revisions  in  F,  and  still  more,  owing  to  the 
reporter's  use  of  the  1 593  text,  in  Q.  His  'bibliographical' 
evidence  of  revision  in  F  consists  partly  of  bits  of  verse 
printed  as  prose,  largely,  I  think,  as  in  Henry  P,  due  to  the 
confusion  of  the  printer  by  Pistol's  verse  intrusions  into 
prose  scenes;  partly  of  the  familiar  feature  (cf,  p.  233) 
of  verse-rhythms  in  |>rose,  which  as  usual  he  interprets  as 
a  result  of  rewriting  in  a  fresh  medium;  and  partly  in  the 
blending  in  some  scenes  of  prose  and  verse,  on  which  I 
will  quote  his  collaborator,  Sir  Arthur  Quiller-Couch,  who 
says,  'Shakespeare  has  everywhere  a  most  delicate  sense  of 
the  separate  capacities  of  verse  and  prose,  and  alternates 


Chap.  IX  THE  MERRY  WIVES  OF  WINDSOR  437 

them  with  an  easy  tact  quite  superior  to  rule'.  On  literary 
rather  than  bibliographical  grounds,  Wilson  ascribes  to 
the  Jealous  Comedy  some  language  (i.  3.  2;  ii.  i.  57-62; 
ii.  2.  186,  247-50;  v.  5.  128-35)  used  by  or  of  Falstaff, 
which  suggests  a  'sententious  philanderer'  and  euphuistic 
scholar,  somewhat  out  of  keeping  with  the  main  concep- 
tion of  him.  This  seems  to  me  rather  hypercritical,  given 
the  haste  of  the  play.  Wilson  does  not,  as  he  might  have 
done,  call  in  aid  the  'metamorphised  youth'  (supra)  of  Q. 
But  presumably  the  double  dose  of  the  Jealous  Comedy  in  Q 
accounts  in  his  mind  for  those  sections  of  un-Shakespearean 
verse  which  I  put  down  to  the  reporter  of  his  assistant. 

Wilson  does  not  attempt  to  identify  his  un-Shake- 
spearean author  or  authors.  Robertson  is  less  reticent.  He 
takes  Merry  Wives  for  the  first  of  the  Falstaff  plays,  on  the 
ground  that  both  Falstaff  and  Mrs.  Quickly  seem  to  him 
to  be  comparatively  young  in  Q,  and  I  understand  him 
to  identify  the  version  there  represented  with  the  Jealous 
Comedy  itself.  It  was  probably  the  work  of  several  colla- 
borators, among  them  Shakespeare  and  possibly  Chap- 
man. And  Chapman  had  a  larger  hand  than  Shakespeare 
in  the  revision  which  produced  the  F  version.  This  claim 
for  Chapman  is  mainly  based  on  the  frail  evidence  of 
vocabulary  clues. 

On  the  source  of  the  plot  there  is  not  much  to  be  said. 
The  lover  concealed  in  household  stuff  appears  in  several 
Italian  stories.  In  Giovanni  Straparola's  Le  Tredeci  Piace- 
voti  Notte  (1550-3),  iv.  4,  followed  in  Richard  Tarlton's 
Newes  Out  of  Purgatory  (1590)  the  vehicle  is  'a  greate 
driefatte  full  of  feathers';  in  Ser  Giovanni  Fiorentino's 
//  Pecorone  (1558)  it  is  *un  monte  di  panni  di  bucato', 
which  is  nearer  to  the  buck-basket.  Henry  Julius  of  Bruns- 
wick employs  a  linen-basket  in  his  Tragedia  Hibeldeha  von 
Einer  Ehebrecherin  (1594),  the  resemblance  of  which  to 
Merry  Wives  is  very  slight,  although  it  introduces  an 
English  clown  (Cohn  xliii,  xlvii).  The  names  Ford,  Page, 
Evans,  Herne,  and  Brooke  have  been  traced  in  Elizabethan 
records  of  Windsor,1  but  they  are  mostly  common  names, 

1  R.  R.  Tighe  and  J.  £.  Davis,  Annals  of  Windsor,  i.  666. 


438  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

and  all  but  Brooke  are  noted  by  French  3 14  at  Stratford. 
Later  Windsor  tradition  pointed  to  the  houses  of  Ford  and 
Page,  and  a  FalstafFs  oak,  which  was  also  that  of  Herne 
the  Hunter.  I  have  considered  the  relation  of  the  play  to 
Sir  Thomas  Lucy  and  Shakespeare's  deer-stealing  in 
Ch.L 

XXIV.  TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA 
[S.R.  1603.]  yfebruarii.  Master  Robertes.  Entred  for 
his  copie  in  full  Court  holden  this  day  to  print  when  he 
hath  gotten  sufficient  aucthority  for  yt,  The  booke  of 
Troilus  and  Cresseda  as  yt  is  acted  by  my  lord  Chamber- 
lens  Men  vjd  (Arber,  iii.  226), 

[S.R.  1609.]  28*°  Januarii.  Richard  Bonion  Henry 
Walleys.  Entred  for  their  Copy  vnder  thandes  of  Master 
Segar  deputy  to  Sir  George  Bucke  and  master  warden 
Lownes  a  booke  called  the  history  of  Troylus  and  Cressida. 
yjd  (Arber,  iii.  400). 

[Q  (first  issue)  1 609.]  The  Historic  of  Troylus  and  Cres- 
seida.  As  it  was  acted  by  the  Kings  Maiesties  seruants  at 
the  Globe.  Written  by  William  Shakespeare.  [Ornament] 
London  Imprinted  by  G.  Eld  for  R.  Bonian  and  H. 
Walley,  and  are  to  be  sold  at  the  spred  Eagle  in  Paules 
Church-yeard,  ouer  against  the  great  North  doore.  1 609. 
[Head-  and  Running-titles']  The  history  of  Troylus  and 
Cresseida. 

[Q  (second  issue}  1609.]  The  Famous  Historic  of  Troylus 
and  Cresseid.    Excellently  expressing  the  beginning  of 
their  loues,  with  the  conceited  wooing  of  Pandarus  Prince 
of  Licia.   Written  by  William  Shakespeare.  [Ornament, 
imprint,  and  head-  and  running-titles,  as  in  first  issue.] 
[For  this  issue,  the  original  leaf  Ai  was  cut  away,  and  two  new 
leaves  substituted ;  the  first  unsigned,  with  the  amended  title  on 
the  r°  and  the  v°  blank  5  the  second  signed  ^[2,  with  an  epistle 
(App.  B,  no.  xxxii)  not  in  the  first  issue.] 
Facsimile.  W.  Griggs  (1886,  Sh.  Q.  xiii,  ei  H.  P.  Stokes). 
[Fi .  1 623.]    [No  entry  in  Catalogue.  Between  Histories  and 
Tragedies,  pp.,  two  unpaged,  79,  80,  twenty-five  unpaged, 


Chap.  IX  TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA  439 

followed  by  one  blank  page;  sign,  two  blank,  ^MWWTa, 
Head-title]     The   Tragedie   of  Troylus  and  Cressida. 
[Running-title*]  The  Tragedie  of  Troylus  and  Cressida  on 
ff.  79, 80,  thereafter  Troylus  and  Cressida. 
[Act  i,  sc.  I  marked.] 

Parallel-Text.  A.  Morgan  (1889,  Bankside). 
Modern  Editions.  K.  Deighton  (1906,  Arderi)\  ].  S.  P.  Tatlock 
(1912,  Tudor)\  N.  B.  Paradise  (1927,  Tale). 
Dissertations.  K.  Eitner,  Die  Troilus-Fabel  in  ihrer  Literatur-geschicht- 
lichen  Entwickelung  (1868,  J.  iii.  252);  W.  Hertzberg,  Die  Quellen  der 
Troilus-Sage  in  ihrem  Ferhaltniu  zu  Shs  T.C.  (1871,  J.vi.  169;)  F.  G. 
¥leay,OntAe Composition  of  T.C.  (1^7^, N.S.S.  Trans.  304.;  Manual,  232); 
H.  Ulrici,  1st  T.C.  Com'edy  oder  Tragedy  oder History?  (1874,  J.  ix.  26); 
C  H.  Herford,  T.C.  andEuphues,  his  Censure  to  Philautus  (1888,  N.S.S. 
Trans.  186);  E.  Stache,  Das  Ferhaltniss  von  Shs  T.C.  zu  Chaucers  gleich- 
namigen  Gedicht  (1893);  R.  A.  Small,  T.C.  (1899,  Stage-Quarrel,  139); 
R.  Boyle,  T.C.  (1901,  E.8.  xxx.  21);  A.  Acheson,  Sh.  and  the  Rival  Poet 
(1903);  E.  Koeppel,  StudienuberShs  Wirkungauf  zeitgenossische  Drama- 
tiker  (1905);  J.  Q.  Adams,  Timon  of  Athens  and  the  Irregularities  in  Fi 
(1908,  J.E.G.P.  vii.  53);  K.  Young,  The  Origin  and  Development  of  the 
Story  ofTroilus  and  Criseyde  (1908,  Chaucer  Soc!)\  N.  E.  Griffin,  Un- 
Homeric  Elements  in  the  Story  of  Troy  (1908,  J.E.G.P.  vii.  32);  J.  S.  P. 
Tatlock,  The  Siege  of  Troy  in  English  Literature,  especially  Sh.  and  Hey- 
wood  (191 5,  PM.L^A.  xxx.  673),  The  Welsh  T.C.  and  its  Relation  to  the 
Elizabethan  Drama  (1915,  M.L.R.  x.  265);  The  Chief  Problem  in  Sh. 
(1916,  Sezoanee  Review) ;  W.  W.  Lawrence,  The  Love  Story  in  T.C.  (1916, 
Columbia  Studies,  187);  H.  E.  Rollins,  The  T.C.  Story  from  Chaucer  to 
Sh.  (1917,  PM.LJI.  xxxii.  383);  J.  M.  Robertson,  T.C.  (1917,  Sh.  and 
Chapman,  193);  P.  K.  Guha,  The  Problem  of  Sh.'s  T.C.  (1926,  Dacca 
Univ.  Bull.  ix.  23);  P.  Alexander,  T.C.  1609  (1928, 4  Library,  ix.  267). 

Q  and  F  represent  substantially  the  same  text.  Q  is  cer- 
tainly a  good  Quarto.  Pollard,  F.Q.,  58,  says  that  it 
was  not  used  by  the  Folio  editors.  But  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  F  was  set  up  from  a  copy  of  Q,  not  so  much 
because  of  a  few  misreadings  and  abnormal  spellings  which 
they  have  in  common,  since  these  might  be  derived  from 
a  common  original,  as  because  of  a  traceable  resem- 
blance in  orthography  and  the  like,  of  which  ii.  2. 1 63-1 93 
afford  a  good  illustration.  Greg,  Emendation,  12,  and 
Alexander  have  independently  criticized  the  view  adopted 
by  Pollard.  The  example  of  Q  used  must  of  course  have 
been  corrected  from  a  manuscript,  F  has  many  better 


440  PLAYS'  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

readings,  although  some  worse,  and  it  restores  several 
passages  omitted  by  Q.  Most  of  these  omissions  (i.  3. 3 1 5 ; 
**•  3-  59~65,  96;  iii.  i.  124;  iv.  4.  79,  146-50;  iv.  5.  206; 
v.  2.  68;  v.  3.  20-2,  58;  v.  10.  2 1-2)  are  probably  mere 
printer's  errors;  thus  in  ii.  3  the  repeated  phrase  'Patroclus 
is  a  fool '  caught  the  printer's  eye  at  65  instead  of  58.   On 
the  other  hand,  i.  3.  354-6  and  iii.  3. 161-3,  both  of  which 
are  accompanied  by  corruptionin  the  neighbouringtext,  and 
possibly  also  iv.  5.  132,  165-70,  rather  look  like  deliber- 
ate excisions  of,  or  bungling  attempts  to  emend,  passages 
found  unintelligible  in  a  manuscript.  I  think  that  i.  3.  70- 
4,  including  the  line  'When  rank  Thersites  opes  his  mastic 
jaws'  was  probably  also  an  accidental  omission ;  it  has  also 
been  explained  both  as  a  dropped  personal  allusion  (cf. 
infra)  in  Q,  and  as  an  addition  in  F.  Finally,  there  is  ii.  3. 
80-2,  with  its  characteristic  reference  by  Thersites  to  'the 
dry  serpigo'.  The  only  reason  for  not  regarding  this  as  an 
error  is  that  F  in  its  turn  abbreviates  Thersites'  medical 
details,  as  given  by  Q,  in  v.  i.  20-8,  but  why  Q  should 
bowdlerize  one  passage  and  F  another  is  not  clean  Either 
passage  might  be  a  gag,  but  two  independent  stage-ver- 
sions of  this  play  do  not  (cf.  infra)  seem  likely.  F,  like  Q, 
makes  some  minor  omissions  (i.  2.  300;  ii.  i.  31-3;  iii.  i. 
95>  "i-  3-  105-6;  iv.  5,  29),  which  must  be  accidental;  at 
iii.  3, 105-6,  the  occurrence  of  lines  with  identical  endings 
is  again  the  cause.  At  iv.  5.  96,  F  inserts  unmetrically  the 
words  'they  call  him  Troylus'.  These  recur  at  108,  where 
they  are  metrical  and  Q  has  them.  I  can  only  suppose  that 
Shakespeare  originally  wrote  them  at  96,  then  reserved 
them  for  a  point  later  in  the  speech,  replacing  them  by  'a 
true  knight',  and  made  a  mark  of  deletion,  which  the 
printer  failed  to  observe.  A  repetition  at  v.  10.  33-5  of 
three  lines  already  used  at  v.  3. 1 1 3,  where  modern  editors 
omit  them,  looks  at  first  sight  like  a  similar  case,  but  here 
(cf.  infra)  the  real  explanation  may  be  different.    If  I  am 
right  as  to  iv.  5. 96,  the  manuscript  used  for  F  was  probably 
the  author's  original,  and  the  variations  between  Q  and  F 
are  intelligible  on  the  assumption  that  this  was  so  and  that 
Q  was  printed  from  a  transcript,  perhaps  made  for  a 


Chap.  IX  TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA  441 

private  owner.  The  epistle  implies  that  it  was  not  obtained 
from  'the  grand  possessors';  that  is,  the  King's  men. 
There  are  a  good  many  verbal  variants  between  the  two 
versions,  but  given  two  printers,  and  for  F  the  usual 
sophisticating  editor,  and  for  Q  a  scribe,  less  expert  at 
reading  manuscript  and  more  inclined  to  cut  or  emend 
what  he  did  not  understand  than  a  printer,  they  do  not 
make  it  necessary  to  resort  to  Furnivall's  hypothesis  that 
F  incorporates  some  trivial  alterations  by  Shakespeare  of 
later  date  than  the  Q  text.  I  do  not  agree  with  Alexander 
that  Q  is  shown,  by  abnormal  spellings,  Rhetorical'  stops, 
and  misprints  which  the  S.T.M.  script  might  explain, 
to  rest  directly  on  copy  in  Shakespeare's  hand.  In  so  far 
as  he  had  a  monopoly  in  such  things,  they  might  show 
through  a  transcript  as  well  as  a  print.  And  some  of  the 
stops  which  Alexander  cites  are  palpable  errors.  The 
alternative  possibilities  of  divergence  in  both  Q  and  F 
from  the  original  inevitably  entail  some  eclecticism  in  the 
adoption  of  readings.  The  F  editor  seems  to  have  revised 
the  Q  punctuation  and  made  it  heavier.  The  stage-direc- 
tions evidently  have  a  common  basis,  but  Q  abbreviates 
the  names  in  a  way  not  usual,  and  lacks  some  entries  and 
musical  notes  found  in  F.  This  might  be  due  either  to 
omission  or  to  addition,  but  there  is  nothing  which  points 
clearly  to  a  book-keeper  rather  than  an  author,  and  one 
cannot  be  sure  from  the  texts  alone  that  either  rests  on 
stage-copy. 

The  bibliographical  record  of  the  play  presents  several 
difficulties.  There  is  the  double  entry  in  S.R.  That  to 
Roberts  in  1 603,  given  with  the  formality  of  'a  fall  Court1, 
suggests  that  some  matter  of  doubt  had  required  discus- 
sion, presumably  the  need  for  'sufficient  aucthority'  re- 
quired by  the  entry  itself.  Pollard,  F.  Q.  66,  suggests  that 
it  may  have  been  a  'provisional'  or  'cautionary'  entry  as 
an  obstacle  (cf.  p.  146)  against  piracy.  But  for  whatever 
reason,  perhaps  the  lapse  of  time  without  printing,  it  does 
not  in  fact  seem  to  have  afforded  any  obstacle  to  the  later 
entry  and  subsequent  publication  by  Bonian  and  Walley 
in  1609.  The  preservation  of  a  cancelled  leaf  in  two 


442  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

examples  of  Fi  (cf.  p.  341)  seems  to  show  that  a  start  was 
made  with  setting-up  the  play  after  Romeo  and  Juliet;  that 
then  a  hitch  arose,  possibly,  as  Pollard  suggests,  owing  to 
trouble  with  Bonian  and  Walley  over  the  copyright,  and 
Timon  of  Athens  took  its  place;  and  that  finally,  after  the 
Catalogue  had  been  printed  without  it,  it  was  thrust  in, 
partly  on  single  leaves,  and  partly  on  unpaged  sheets  with 
special  signatures,  in  a  new  place.  This  is  a  more  plausible 
explanation  than  any  doubt  whether  it  could  be  properly 
classed  as  a  tragedy,  even  although  the  description  of  it 
as  such  was  left  out  of  the  running-titles  on  most  of  its 
pages.  It  might  have  been  classed  as  a  comedy,  but 
certainly  not  as  one  of  the  English  histories,  and  in  its  new 
place  it  can  still  have  been  regarded  as  a  tragedy.  It  is 
in  fact  a  tragedy,  having  no  kindly  ending,  as  all  the 
comedies  have.  Then  there  is  the  conflict  between  the 
entry  of  1603,  which  records  performance  by  the  Cham- 
berlain's men,  and  the  confirmation  of  this,  with  a  merely 
formal  change  of  the  description  to  King's  men,  in  the 
first  title-page  of  r  609,  and  on  the  other  hand  the  omission 
of  any  such  record  from  the  revised  title-page  and  the 
definite  declaration  in  the  epistle  that  the  piece  was  'neuer 
stal'd  with  the  Stage*.  We  are  bound  to  assume  that 
Bonian  and  Walley  had  come  to  this  belief.  It  does  not 
follow  that  they  were  right.  On  the  face  of  it  a  statement 
of  1 603  is  better  evidence,  as  nearer  to  the  date,  than  one 
of  1609.  But  it  is  just  possible  that  the  only  performance 
had  been  at  court,  or  as  Alexander  suggests,  at  an  Inn  of 
Court,  and  that  this  was  not  thought  to  amount  to  staling 
with  the  stage.  It  is  possible,  to  cite  Pollard  again,  that 
Roberts  made  his  entry  in  anticipation  of  an  intended 
performance  which,  for  whatever  reason,  never  came  o£F. 
But  I  think  there  is  sufficient,  although  not  much,  evidence 
to  indicate  that  Troilus  and  Cressida  was  known  by  about 
1 604,  and  if  known,  it  must  have  been  performed.  Mere 
allusions  to  the  Troilus-Cressida-Pandar  story,  such  as  that 
in  Dekker  and  Webster's  Westward  Ho  (c.  1 604),  of  course 
prove  nothing,  in  view  (cf.  infra)  of  the  Admiral's  play. 
Marston,  Dutch  Courtesan  (c.  1603— 4),  ii.  1. 154,  'Much  o* 


Chap.  IX  TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA  44.3 

your  worship's  brain  lies  in  your  calves',  and  iv.  i.  93, 
'Sometimes  a  falling  out  proves  falling  in',  may  echo  ii.  i. 
1 08  and  iii.  1.112,  respectively.   More  convincing  are  the 
lines  in  I.  C.  SaintMarieMagdalensConversion^iSo^A.^ — 
Of  Helens  rape  and  Troyes  beseiged  Towne, 
Of  Troylus  faith,  and  Cressids  falsitie, 
Of  Rychards  stratagems  for  the  English  crowne, 
Of  Tarquins  lust,  and  Lucrece  chastitie, 
Of  these,  of  none  of  these  my  muse  nowe  treates, 

Here  both  of  the  Troilus  and  Cressida  themes  are  touched, 
and  linked  with  two  others,  both  Shakespearean. 

The  S.R.  entry  gives  one  limit  of  date  for  Troilus 
and  Cressida.  The  other  is  less  clear.  The  story  of  the 
fool  and  the  ice,  alluded  to  in  iii.  3.  215,  is  probably 
that  in  Armin's  Foole  vpon  Foole  (I6OO).1  This  Shake- 
speare may  have  heard  personally  from  Armin.  But 
the  'prologue  arm'd'  of  Troilus  and  Cressida  clearly  refers 
to  that  of  Jonson's  Poetaster,  produced  in  i6oi.2  Such  a. 
reference  would  have  little  point  after  an  interval,  and  I 
incline  to  put  the  play  in  1602.  Of  course  the ^  prologue^ 
might  be  later  than  Troilus  and  Cressida  itself,  and  a  date 
as  early  as  1599  has  been  inferred  from  the  play-scrap  on 
Troilus  and  Cressida,  recited  by  Sir  Oliver  Owlet's  men 
in  Histriomastix,  ii.  269,  with  its  reference  to  the  knight 
who  'shakes  his  furious  Speare'.  Histriomastix  was  very 
likely  revised  in  1599,  perhaps  by  Marston,  although  I 
am  not  sure  that  this  passage  belongs  to  the  revision.3 
In  any  case,  although  the  coincidence  with  Shakespeare's 
name  may  be  an  odd  one,  it  is  not  really  necessary  to 
assume  that  there  is  an  allusion  to  him.  The  phrase 
'shake  a  spear'  is  common  in  Elizabethan  poetry.  Robert- 
son has  collected  a  number  of  examples  from  Spenser 
onwards.  And  if  any  real  play  is  mocked  in  the  Histrio- 
mastix passage,  it  may  well  be  that  written  for  the 
Admiral's  by  Dekker  and  Chettle  about  April  1599,  of 
which  a  fragmentary  'plot'  survives.4  The  temper  of 
Troilus  and  Cressida,  in  so  far  as  it  is  humorous,  does  not  at 

'  H.P.  i.  321.  3  Cf.  ibid.  iv.  19. 

a  Eliz.  Stage,  iii.  365.  4  Ibid.  ii.  1695  iv.  51. 


444  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

all  suggest  1599.  Even  in  1602,  although  it  is  consonant 
with  that  of  the  comedies  All's  Well  and  Measure  for 
Measure  which  follow,  it  represents  a  great  break  away 
from  that  of  the  earlier  series  which  ends  with  Merry 
Wives.  But  if  the  play  is  thought  of  as  tragedy  rather  than 
comedy,  it  falls  into  place  as  a  development  of  the  critical 
attitude  to  life  already  apparent  in  Hamlet.  The  formal  tests 
of  style  are  not  inconsistent  with  1 602.  But  Shakespeare's 
thought  is  becoming  more  analytic  and  his  expression  of  it 
more  involved.  And  there  are  some  stylistic  qualities,  which, 
in  degree  rather  than  in  kind,  give  Troilus  and  Cressida 
a  place  apart.  The  language  is  highly  Latinized,  and 
there  is  a  marked  tendency  to  the  use  of  out-of-the-way 
words,  and  in  particular  to  the  replacement  of  ordinary 
words  by  variant  forms  with  terminations,  themselves 
sometimes  showing  a  Latin  influence,  such  as  -/0#,  -urey 
-ive,  -ate^  -ance.  These  features  can  of  course  be  paralleled 
to  a  less  extent  from  other  plays,  especially  plays  of  near 
date.  In  Troilus  and  Cressida  they  are  most  frequent  in  the 
argumentative  discourse  of  Ulysses  and  his  fellows.  But 
they  pervade  the  play  throughout,  and  must,  I  think,  be 
held  to  indicate  something  of  a  deliberate  stylistic  experi- 
ment. It  remains  to  add  that  the  entry  of  1 603  does  not 
in  itself  preclude  the  possibility  of  alteration  between 
1602  and  1609.  One  cannot  tell  whence  Shakespeare  got 
the  statement  (ii.  2.  165)  that  Aristotle  thought  young 
men  unfit  to  hear  moral  philosophy.  It  is  found  in  Bacon's 
Advancement  of  Learning (i  605),  bk.  ii,  but  rests  (Lee  653) 
on  a  common  and  quite  justifiable  Renaissance  rendering 
of  Ttj$  iroXiriKfjs  axpoar^s  in  Nic.  Eth.  i.  3.  5,  In  ii. 
3.  22,  Thersites'says,  'I  have  said  my  prayers  and  devil 
Envy  say  Amen'.  This  is  generally  taken  as  a  second 
reference  to  Poetaster^  in  which  Envy  is  crushed  by  the 
Prologue.  But  it  comes  much  nearer  to  Mucedorus^  epil. 
79,  where  Envy  does  in  fact  say  'Amen*  to  the  praise 
of  James.  This  is  not  in  the  1598  and  1606  editions, 
where  it  is  Comedie  who  calls  upon  the  audience  to  'saie 
amen*;  it  is  in  the  1610  edition,  representing  a  recent 
revival.  The  date  of  this  cannot  be  exactly  fixed,  especially 


Chap.  IX  TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA  445 

as^  an  edition  of  1609,  although  not  now  known,  is  cited 
by  Collier.1  But  it  is  more  likely  to  have  followed  than 
preceded  the  publication  of  Troilus  and  Cressida.  Much 
weight  cannot,  therefore,  be  attached  to  either  of  these 
points.  To  me  Troilus  and  Cressida  seems  in  the  main  to 
be  all  of  one  piece,  with  the  probable  exception  of  the 
epilogue.  This  may  very  well  not  be  Shakespearean  at  all, 
and  to  speak  it  Pandarus,  over  and  done  with  at  the  end  of 
v.  3,  is  incongruously  brought  back,  on  to  the  battle-field 
of  all  places,  and  introduced  with  the  lines  borrowed 
(cf.  supra)  from  v.  3. 1 1 3-1 5.  The  Q  transcriber  must  have 
spotted  the  duplication,  and  cut  out  the  first  appearance  of 
the  passage. 

Troilus  and  Cressida  has,  however,  been  the  happy 
hunting-ground  of  disintegrators,  who  have  dwelt  upon 
the  slight  connexion — surely  not  unlike  Shakespeare — 
between  the  Trojan  and  camp  plots,  and  the  inconsistency 
—due,  I  think,  to  the  use  of  different  sources — between 
the  continuous  warfare  of  the  former  and  the  truce  of  the 
latter;  and  have  attempted  to  trace  corresponding  differ- 
ences of  style,  pointing  to  different  dates  or  to  different 
hands,  Fleay  in  1 874  thought  that  Shakespeare  wrote  the 
Troilus-Cressida  scenes  in  1594-6,  added  the  Hector- 
Ajax  combat  and  death  of  Hector  a  little  later,  and  the 
plan  of  Ulysses  to  substitute  Ajax  for  Achilles  as  late  as 
1606-7;  and  that  parts  of  the  last  act  were  made  up  of 
debris  from  the  Dekker-Chettle  play.  It  is  difficult  to  see 
how  a  play  can  be  built  up  like  this,  or  how  the  Ajax  story 
in  particular  can  be  so  split  up,  Fleay  seems  to  have 
recognized  these  points,  and  in  1886  produced  a  new 
theory,  according  to  which  a  complete  play  was  written 
by  Shakespeare  and  an  unknown  coadjutor  at  a  date  now 
put  back  with  Romeo  and  Juliet  to  about  1593.  Most  of 
the  coadjutor's  work  was  replaced  by  Shakespeare  about 
1602,  but  the  prologue  and  v.  4-10  are  still  his.  There  is 
now  no  addition  of  1606-7.  This,  however,  still  rules 
with  Boyle,  for  whom  Shakespeare  wrote  an  early  play 
on  the  love-story  at  the  time  of  Romeo  and  Juliet >  began  to 

*  Cf.  B&x.  Stage,  iv.  34. 


446  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

recast  it  about  1606  by  introducing  the  Ulysses  story,  but 
did  not  get  beyond  Act  iii,  and  left  the  completion  to 
Marston,  who  added  the  Hector  story,  and  the  prologue 
and  epilogue.  Small  contented  himself  with  regarding 
v.  7-10  as  un-Shakespearean  and  the  prologue  and 
v.  4-6  as  only  partly  Shakespearean.  Robertson  breaks 
new  ground.  Dekker  and  Chettle's  play  was  rehandled 
successively  by  Chapman  and  Shakespeare,  and  to 
Chapman  much  of  the  vocabulary  and  the  'ratiocina- 
tive  discussions',  but  not  the  present  versification,  are 
due.  As  usual,  these  conflicting  theories  may  largely  be 
left  to  cut  each  other's  throats.  They  all  seem  to  me  to 
raise  more  difficulties  than  they  solve.  There  is  no 
evidence  that  Shakespeare  ever  rewrote  the  work  of  a 
coadjutor  or  that  an  Admiral's  play  was  ever  transferred 
to  the  Chamberlain's.  No  doubt  Chapman  made  much 
use  of  far-fetched  and  invented  words  and  of  Latinisms 
in  his  poems  and  prefaces;  but  not  to  any  great  extent  in 
his  plays.  Nor  can  the  attitude  of  Troilus  and  Cressida  to 
the  Homeric  heroes  conceivably  be  Chapman's.  Marston, 
too,  liked  out-of-the-way  words,  and  Boyle  finds  his 
bluster  in  the  speeches  of  Hector  and  Aeneas  and  Dio- 
mede,  and  his  coarseness  in  Thersites.  But  the  arrogance 
of  the  heroes  belongs  to  the  temper  of  the  play,  and  if, 
as  Boyle  thinks,  Shakespeare  wrote  the  earlier  Thersites 
scenes,  why  not  all  of  them  ?  Nor  do  I  find  anything  in  the 
style  which  need  be  early.  The  echoes  to  and  from  other 
plays  reach  back  to  Romeo  and  Juliet  and  forward  at  least 
to  Lear.  The  use  of  rhymed  couplets  does  not  tell  against 
Shakespeare  in  1602;  there  are  a  good  many  still  in 
Macbeth.  It  is  not  unnatural,  in  view  of  the  similarity  of 
theme  in  the  love-story,  that  a  passage  here  and  there  should 
recall  the  manner  of  Romeo  and  Juliet nn&Merchant  of  Fenice. 
That  most  relied  upon  isL  1. 101—7.  There  is  not  much 
to  back  it  up,  and  the  Shakespeare  of  1595-7  certainly 
never  wrote  the  speech  of  Troilus  in  iv.  4.  35-50.  I  do  not 
even  think  that  Small  is  right,  except  as  regards  the 
epilogue,  when  he  finds  a  second  hand  in  v.  4-10.  The 
double-ending  test,  on  which  he  largely  relies,  cannot 


Chap.  IX  TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA  447 

properly  be  applied  to  a  group  of  scenes,  in  which  the 
blank  verse  amounts  to  no  more  than  42  lines.   These 
are  huddled  scenes,  with  some  poor  work  in  them,  ^  but 
Shakespeare  did  sometimes  scamp  his  work,  especially 
at  the  end  of  a  play.  And  the  Margarelon  bit  and  v.  10. 
22 — 'Hector  is  dead;  there  is  no  more  to  say* — are  surely 
his.   On  this  point  Small  has  no  doubt  supporters,  even 
outside  the  ranks  of  professed  disintegrators.    I  believe 
them  to  have  been  misled  by  the  notion  that  the  first 
occurrence  of  the  repeated  lines  (cf.  supra}  marks  the 
original  end  of  the  play.   It  does  not;  it  only  marks  the 
end  of  Pandarus.   The  other  story  must  always  have  in- 
volved the  death  of  Hector,  which  is  already  foreshadowed 
in  v.  3.  Nor  can  one  easily  suppose  that  a  collaborator  was 
brought  in  for  the  first  time  at  the  tag-end  of  the  play. 
As  to  the  prologue,  I  see  nothing  to  exclude  Shakespeare. 
Some  differentiation  between  the  style  of  a  prologue  ^and 
that  of  its  play  is  usual  enough.    And  the  specialized 
Troilus  and  Cressida  vocabulary  is  there.  I  have  dealt  else- 
where (cf.  p.  72)  with  the  possible  relations  of  Troilus  and 
Cressida  to  the  'stage-quarrel',  and  need  only  add  here  that 
if  Marston  was  Thersites,  he  certainly  was  not  also  the 
author. 

Directly  or  indirectly,  Troilus  and  Cressida  draws  upon 
four  sources.  The  first  is  Chaucer's  Troilus  and  Criseyde, 
itself  derived  ultimately,  not  from  Homer,  but  from  two 
Latin  pseudo-Homeric  narratives,  the  Ephemeris  Belli 
Troiani  of  Dictys  Cretensis  (4th  cent.  A.D.)  and  the  De 
Excidio  Troiae  Historia  of  Dares  Phrygius.  On  these  were 
based  the  Roman  de  Troie  (c.  1160)  of  Benoit  de  Saint- 
Maure;  on  Benoit  the  Historia  Troiana  (1287)  of  Guido 
delle  Colonne ;  and  on  both  Benoit  and  Guido,  with  borrow- 
ings from  his  own  Filocolo  and  from  medieval  romance, 
the  Filostrato  (c.  1339)  of  Boccaccio.  Chaucer  in  his  turn 
followed  the  Filostrato^  and  added  something  direct  from 
Benoit,  Guido,  and  the  Filocolo.  Secondly,  material  for  the 
camp-scenes,  which  mostly  lie  outside  the  Chaucerian 
story,  come  from  one  of  two  derivatives  from  Guido, 
either  Lydgate's  Sege  of  Troye  (c.  1412-20)  or  Caxton's 


448  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

Recuyell  of  the  Historyes  of  Troye  (1475);  probably  the 
latter,  to  which  the  spelling  of  names  in  Troilus  and  Cres- 
sida  is  closer  than  to  the  Sege*  Thirdly,  although  not  much 
use  is  made  of  it  in  the  play,  the  Elizabethans  were 
familiar  with  the  tragic  development  of  Cressida's  story 
to  an  end  in  a  lazar-house,  as  given  to  it  in  Robert  Henry- 
son's  Scottish  Testament  of  Cresset^  printed  as  Chaucer's 
in  the  edition  of  1532.  And  fourthly  there  was  Homer,  to 
whom  much  of  the  presentation  of  the  Greek  heroes,  as 
well  as  the  introduction  of  Thersites,  must  be  due.   Chap- 
man's Homeric  translations  began  with  Seaven  Books  of 
the  Iliades  (i,  ii,  and  vii-xi)  and  Achilles  Shield  (xviii)  both 
in  1598,  and  probably  suggested  the  theme  of  Troilus  and 
Cressida.   The  other  books  came  too  late  for  use  in  the 
play.  Arthur  Hall's  Ten  Bookes  of  Homers  Iliades  (i-x)  was 
of  1581:    These  selections  would  not  have  told  Shake- 
speare that  it  was  not  Troilus,  as  in  the  pseudo-Homeric 
versions,  but  Hector,  who  was  dragged  at  the  heels  of  the 
horse  of  Achilles.  He  may  have  known  the  full  French 
translation  of  Hugues  Sale!  and  Amadis  Jamyn  (1584, 
1597).   But  such  questions  are  hardly  worth  pursuing, 
since  a  general  contemporary  knowledge  both  of  the 
Homeric  story  and  of  the  Sophoclean  presentation  of 
Ajax  may  be  assumed.    An  outline  of  the  latter,  for 
example,  was  given  in  Peele's  Tale  of  Troy  (1589).   The 
earlier  Shakespearean  plays  contain  many  references  to 
the  classical  personages,  as  well  as  to  Troilus  and  Cressida 
themselves*  Moreover,  there  was  already  a  stage-tradition. 
A  'story  of  Troylous  and  Pandar'  was  played  by  the  Chapel 
as  far  back  as  1 5 1 6.1  Bale  records  a  comoedia  of  'Troilum 
ex  Chaucero'  by  Nicholas  Grimald  about  i£4Q-7.2  The 
Windsor  Chapel  gave  an  Aiax  and  Vlisses  at  court  in  1 572 3 
and  Oxford's  boys  an  Agamemnon  &?  Vlisses  in  1584^ 
The  Admiral's  produced  a  Troy  on  25  June  1596  as  well 
as  Dekker  and  Chettle's  play  (cf.  supra)  of  1 602, 5  Troy  has 
sometimes  been  regarded  as  an  early  form  of  Heywood's 

1  Med.  Stage,  ii.  205;  Brewer,  ii.  2.         3  Etix.  Stage,  £v.  146. 
1205.  4  Ibid.  iv.  160. 

2  Med.  Stage,  ii.  450.  *  Ibid.  ii.  144. 


Chap.  IX  TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA  449 

Iron  Age>  printed  in  two  parts  in  1 632.  This  is,  of  course,  a 
mere  conjecture.  But  Tatlock  has  argued  that  the  Iron  Age 
was  written  before  Heywood's  narrative  Troia-Britannica 
of  1609,  and  explains  some  passages,  which  are  too  close 
to  Troilus  and  Cressida  to  be  altogether  independent  of  it, 
as  due  to  the  use  by  Heywood  and  Shakespeare  of  a  com- 
mon dramatic  source.  His  main  ground  is  that  Iron  Age 
repeats  lines  from  two  poetical' epistles  between  Paris  and 
Helen  which  are  in  a  different  metre  to  the  rest  of  Troia- 
Britannica  and  may  be  of  earlier  date,  and  makes  no 
similar  use  of  the  rest  of  Troia-Britannica,  which  he  there- 
fore thinks  not  to  have  been  yet  in  existence.  This  is  in- 
genious, but  it  can  hardly  stand  against  the  clear  inference 
From  the  epistles  to  Heywood's  earlier  Ages  that  the  Iron 
Age^  whether  based  upon  earlier  work  or  not,  had  not 
yet  'aduentured  the  Stage'  in  161 1,  although  it  was  con- 
templated 'by  Gods  grace'  in  i6i3.J  And  I  think  we  must 
ascribe  the  parallels  with  Troilus  and  Cressida  to  borrow- 
ings by  Heywood  from  Shakespeare. 

XXV.    ALL'S  WELL  THAT  ENDS  WELL 

[Fi.  1623.]    [Catalogue}    All   is  well,  that  Ends  well. 
[Comedies,  pp.  230-54,  sign.  Viv-Yv.   Head-  and  Run- 
ning-titles] All 's  (Alls)  Well,  that  Ends  (ends)  Well. 
[Acts  i,  sc.  i,  ii-v  marked.] 

Modern  Editions.  W.  O.  Brigstocke  (1904,  1929,  Arderi)\  A.  E. 
Case  (1926,  Yale}\  A.  T.  Quiller-Couch  and  J.  D.  Wilson  (1929, 
C.U.P.). 

Dissertations.  H. v. Friesen A.W.(\ 867,  J. ii. 48)5  F. G. Fleav, On A.W. 
(1874,  N.S.S.  Trans.  285;  Manual,  224);  H.  v.  d.  Hagen,  Vber  die  alt- 
franzosische  Forstufe  des  Bhs  A.W.  (1879);  N.  Delius,  SA.'s  A.W.  and 
PaynteSs  Giletta  ofNarbonne  (1887,  y.  xxii.  27;  AbL  ii.  283);  R.  Boyle, 
A.W.andLove'sLabour's Won  (1890, E.S. xiv. 408);  L. Frankel, Z« A.W. 
(1892,  Anglta,  xiv.  457);  W.  W.  Lawrence,  The  Meaning  of  A.W.  (1922, 
PM.L.A.  xxxvii.  418);  J.  M.  Robertson,  A.W.  (1925,  Sh.  Canon,  iii.  28). 

F  is  not  a  satisfactory  text,  and  requires  a  good  deal  of 
emendation.  The  mislineations  are  not  extensive,  and 
seem  mainly  due  to  the  transitions  between  verse  and 

1  Ibid.  iii.  345. 

3I42.X  G  g 


450  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

prose.  The  stage-directions  are  mainly  normal,  but  a  few 
(ii.  i .  i ;  ii.  3. 1 9 1 ;  iv,  i .  i)  indicate  the  nature  of  the  scenes 
they  introduce.  There  is  much  variation  of  nomenclature, 
especially  for  the  Countess  and  for  Bertram,  and  the  F  editor 
can  have  made  no  attempt  at  unification.  These  features 
suggest  nearness  to  the  author's  copy.  But  the  book-keeper 
has  probably  added  the  letters  G,  and  E.  to  the  i .  and  2.  by 
which  the  author  discriminated  the  brothers  Dumain,  who 
are  indifferently  described  (i.  2;  ii.  i;  iii.  i,  6;  iv.  i,  3; 
v.  i)  as  Lords,  Captains,  or  Frenchmen,  and  are  apparently 
also  the  Gentlemen  of  iii.  2.  The  letters  may  indicate 
the  names  of  actors;  Gough  and  Ecclestone  have  been 
guessed  at.  The  'Enter  a  gentle  Astringer'  of  v.  i.  7  is  a 
well-known  crux.  An  astringer  was  an  officer  of  falconry, 
and  probably  F  so  interpreted  the  stage-direction.  But 
such  an  officer  would  be  out  of  place  in  the  scene,  and  I  have 
a  suspicion  that  Shakespeare  wrote  *Gentle(man)  Usher', 
and  that  again  the  book-keeper  added  over  it  the  initial  *T' 
of  an  actor.1  There  may  be  some  indication  of  cutting 
in  the  long  dashes  printed  at  i.  i.  61  and  i.  3. 159,  the  two 
successive  short  lines  at  iii.  5. 42,  the  abrupt  change  of  sub- 
ject at  i.  i.  1 79.  Violenta  is  a  mute  in  iii.  $.  A  statement  is 
ascribed  to  Diana  at  v.  3. 199,  which  she  has  not  made,  as 
the  text  stands. 

There  is  little  external  evidence  on  the  date  of  the  play. 
There  was  an  earthquake  (i.  3.  9 1)  on  24  December  1 60 1 .2 
Parolles  is  chaffed  for  his  exploit  with  the  drum,  as  'Torn 
Drum'  (v.  3.  322)  and  as  getting  'John  Drum's  entertain- 
ment1 (iii.  6.  40).  But  the  phrase  'Tom  Drum's  enter- 
tainment' is  cited  in  a  proverbial  sense  by  Holinshed,  and 
one  cannot  therefore  be  sure  of  an  allusion  to  the  Paul's 
play,  probably  written  by  Marston  in  1600,  of  Jack 
Drum's  Entertainment,  and  printed  in  1601.3  But  Lafeu's 
*Lustique,  as  the  Dutchman  saies*  (ii,  3.  47)  must  clearly 
come  from  Jacob  van  Smelt's  repeated  'lustick'  in  The 
Weakest  Goeth  to  the  Wall^  943-6,  and  there  is  no  reason 

1  Prof,  Wilson  teHs  me  that  a  sloven-         »  Chamberlain,  E&K.  124;   Stowe, 
ly  'usscher*  might  become  'astrtger*     Annales,  1412. 
without  the  T*.  3  £&>.  Stage,  iv.  21. 


Chap.  IX  ALL'S  WELL  THAT  ENDS  WELL  451 

to  regard  this  play  as  much  older  than  its  publication  in 
I600.1  There  are  no  very  clear  early  references  to  All's 
Well  itself;  the  title  may  be  echoed  in  Marston's  Dutch 
Courtesan,  iv.  i.  16;  iv.  2.  48;  iv.  4.  1—4;  v.  3*  150,  170. 
This  is  a  play  of  about  1 603-4,*  There  are  some  fairly 
close  echoes  in  All  V  Well  of  Hamlet  (i.  i .  1 70),  Troilus  and 
Cressida  (ii.  i. 100),  and  As  Tou  Like  //(iv,  i.  45),  and  the 
names  Corambus,  Jaques,  Sebastian,  Violenta  are  used 
in  Hamlet,  As  Tou  Like  It,  and  Twelfth  Night,  although 
Capilet  and  Dumain  point  back  to  Romeo  and  Juliet  and 
Love's  Labour  9s  Lost.  Such  faint  indications  are  at  least 
consistent  with  a  date  in  1 60 1  —4,  and  I  put  All  9s  Well  tenta- 
tively in  1 602-3,  between  Troilus  and  Cressida  and  Measure 
for  Measure.  These  are  the  plays  to  which  it  has  the  closest 
affinity  in  temper,  and  on  the  whole  in  style.  The  Latin- 
ized vocabulary  of  Troilus  and  Cressida  does  not  recur 
to  any  marked  extent.  Throughout  the  play  one  gets  the 
impression  that  Shakespeare's  mind  and  pen  are  not 
moving  easily,  and  there  is  a  rather  more  considerable  use 
of  rhyme  for  substantial  sections  of  dialogue  than  is 
typical  of  his  work  at  this  period.  Explanations  have  been 
given  which  seem  to  me  .to  raise  more  difficulties  than 
they  solve.  Boyle  thinks  that  the  rhyme  and  some  of  the 
prose  have  survived  from  earlier  work,  and  argues,  with 
the  help  of  some  slight  Shakespearean  inconsistencies  in 
the  plot,  that  All's  Well  is  a  revision  of  Love  Labours 
Won,  and  cites  Helena's  'Will  you  be  mine,  now  you  are 
doubly  won?'  (v.  3.  315)  as  an  echo  of  that  inconclusive 
title.  I  do  not,  however,  believe  that  the  rhyme  is  early  at 
all.  The  passages  in  which  it  occurs  do  not  in  other 
respects  differ  much  from  the  neighbouring  blank  verse; 
like  that,  they  are  broken  up  by  internal  pauses  and  run- 
on  lines.  Sometimes,  although  not  always,  they  can  be 
read  as  having  a  dramatic  intention;  to  mark  a  change  of 
mood  (i.  i.  231—44),  to  convey  sententious  comment  (i. 
3.  135-41;  ii.  3.  132-51),  to  create  an  atmosphere  of 
exaltation  in  preparation  for  a  miraculous  cure  (ii.  i.  133- 
2 1 3),  Robertson,  perturbed  by  the  comparative  weakness, 

1  Ibid.  iv.  52.  *  Ibid.  iii.  430. 

Cg2 


452  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

which  must  be  admitted,  of  the  play  as  a  whole,  boldly 
claims  that  it  is  substantially  by  Chapman,  possibly 
revising  work  of  Greene,  and  only  slightly  worked  over 
in  his  turn  by  Shakespeare.  The  suggestion  of  Greene 
seems  to  me  quite  ill-founded.  Nor  do  I  agree  that  the 
episode  of  Parolles  and  his  drum  is  quite  so  irrelevant 
and  inane  as  to  require  attribution  to  Chapman,  or  that  the 
patches  of  continuous  rhyme  are  in  his  manner,  or  that 
(cf.  p.  222)  Robertson's  clues  to  his  vocabulary  will  bear 
analysis.  On  the  other  hand,  I  think  that  in  certain  pas- 
sages of  the  blank  verse  (e.g.  i.  2.  24-48 ;  i.  3. 226-36;  ii. 
i .  1 06-3 1 ;.  ii.  5.  59-76),  which  are  stiffly  written  and  seem 
struggling  to  express  more  than  is  there  to  be  expressed, 
there  does  emerge  a  quality  which  for  whatever  reason 
approximates  to  that  of  the  blank  verse  of  Chapman.  But 
to  read  the  play  as  a  whole  in  the  light  of  Robertson's 
theory  is,  for  me,  at  once  to  be  confirmed  in  the  conviction 
that,  however  much  it  may  be  unlike  Shakespeare's  more 
normal  manner,  it  is  even  more  unlike  any  of  the  ingenious 
but  empty  comedies  of  Chapman.  On  the  whole,  there- 
fore, I  do  not  see  that  any  other  assumption  helps  to  make 
this  difficult  play  more  intelligible  than  the  assumption  of 
Shakespeare  working  in  an  abnormal  mood. 

The  source  is  Boccaccio's  tale  of  Giglietta  di  Nerbona*  as 
translated  in  William  Painter's  Palace  of  Pleasure,  i  (i  566), 
38.  Shakespeare  uses  Painter's  'Senois'  for  Viennese'. 
There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he  knew  Bernardo 
Accolti's  Firginia(i$i$y  1535),  also  based  on  Boccaccio's 
story.  The  substitution  of  one  woman  for  another  in  bed, 
common  to  All's  Wett  and  Measure  for  Measure^  is,  of 
course,  a  commonplace  of  romantic  literature. 

XXVI.   MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE 
[Fi.  1623.]  [Catalogue]  Measure  for  Measure.  [Come- 
dies, pp.  61-84,  sign.  F-G  6\  Head-title]  Measure,  For 
Measure.  [Running-title]  Measure  for  Measure. 
[Acts  and  sec  marked.   The  Scene  Vienna'  and  The  names  of  all 
the  Actors*  at  end.] 

1  Decameron,  iii.  9. 


Chap.  IX  MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE  453 

Modern  Editions.  H.  C.  Hart  (1905, 1925,  Arden}\  A.  T.  Quiller- 
CouchandJ.D.  Wilson(i922,C.[7.P.);  W.  H.  Durham(i926,r^ 
Dissertations.  K.  Foth,  Shs  MM.  und  die  Geschichte  von  Promos  und 
Cassandra  (1878,  J.  xiii.  163);  L.  L.  K.  The  Plot  of  MM.  (1893,  8  N.Q. 
iv.  83);  G.  Sarrazin,  Herzog Fincentio  in  MM.  undsein  Urbild (1895,  J. 
xxxi.  165);  E.  Law,  The  First-Night  Performance  of  MM.  (1910,  Dec.  26, 
Times)\  ].  M.  Robertson,  The  Problem  of  MM.  (1923,  8A.  Canon,  ii.  158). 
The  textual  confusions  and  mislineations  of  F  are  so 
.  frequent  as  to  give  plausibility  to  the  conclusion  of  Wilson 
that  a  transcriber  has  intervened  between  the  original  copy 
and  the  printer;  and  the  extreme  slightness  of  the  stage- 
directions,  which  often  omit  entries  and  exits,  lead  him  to 
think  that  the  transcriber  was,  at  least  to  some  extent, 
'assembling'  (cf.  p.  153)  from  'parts'. 

The  play  was  given  at  court  on  26  December  1604 
(App.  D).  Allusions  (L  i.  68 ;  ii.  4.  26)  to  a  royal  dislike 
of  crowds  may  reflect  an  idiosyncrasy  of  James,  but  the 
proclamations  of  2  9  May  and  6  July  1 603  restraining  access 
to  London  and  the  court,1  which  are  sometimes  cited  in 
confirmation  of  this,  were  merely  normal  precautions 
against  the  spread  of  plague.  Fleay2  cites  other  possible 
indications  of  1604,  some  of  which  are  rather  thin,  while 
one,  the  supposed  allusion  in  'Like  doth  quit  like'  (v.  i. 
416)  to  the  name  of  a  play  by  Heywood  and  Chettle  rests 
on  a  forgery  by  Collier.3  Wilson  finds  in  the  black  masks 
(ii.  4.  79),  which  proclaim  an  'enshelled'  (F.  'en-shield') 
beauty,  an  allusion  to  Jonson's  coming  Mask  of  Blackness 
on  6  January  1605.4-  It  may  be  so,  but  although  the 
maskers  entered  in  a  shell,  they  were  painted  black  and 
wore  no  masks.  The  style  of  the  play  is  not  inconsistent 
with  1 604,  and  the  temper  is  consonant  with  that  of  Troilus 
and  Cressida  and  All  'j  Well.  There  is  better  poetry  than 
in  Airs  Wel^  but,  as  in  that,  a  good  deal  of  ineffective  verse 
and  humourless  prose,  while  the  structure  still  indicates 
the  same  uncertainty  of  dramatic  intention.  The  only 
marked  early  echo,  which  has  been  traced,  is  of  ii.  4,  24—6 
in  William  Barksted's  Mirrha  (1607). 

Wilson  scents  a  later  date  than  1604  ^n  the  reference 

1  Prod.  951,  961.  3  Henslowe,  i.  xliii. 

a  L.  and  W.  234.  4  £/&.  Stage,  iii.  375. 


454  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

(i.  2.  5)  to  the  King  of  Hungary's  peace.  This  he  takes 
to  be  a  disgraceful  peace  made  against  the  will  of  the 
Emperor  by  the  Archduke  Matthias,  King  of  Hungary, 
with  the  Turks  at  Zsitva-Torok  on  1 1  November  1 606.  But 
surely  it  may  as  well  be  the  peace  made  and  treacherously 
broken  by  Sigismund  of  Hungary  in  2  Tamburlaine,  i.  2 ; 
ii.  i.  2.  However,  the  double  date  so  arrived  at  serves 
Wilson  as  the  starting-point  for  an  elaborate  and  even 
statistical  reconstruction  of  a  complicated  stage-history  for 
Measure  for  Measure.  It  may  have  been  originally  a  six- 
teenth-century play,  perhaps  with  a  long  history  behind  it, 
going  back  to  Promos  and  Cassandra  (cf.  infra),  and  only 
revised  by  Shakespeare.  In  any  case  the  text  used  in  the 
performance  of  1604,  for  which  Shakespeare  'scribbled' 
the  topical  court  passages,  was  a  drastic  abridgement  in 
some  2,000  lines,  carried  out,  not  by  him  but  by  a  'second- 
rate  collaborator',  on  the  'parts'.  Later  than  1 1  Novem- 
ber 1606,  a  longer  version  was  required  for  the  public 
stage.  But  the  original  copy  was  lost.  Somebody  therefore, 
again  not  Shakespeare,  took  the  parts,  hastily  transcribed 
1,604  blank  verse,  20  rhymed,  and  241  prose  lines  of 
Shakespeare's  work  as  cut,  scrapped  135  more  lines  of 
blank  verse  and  expanded  their  material  into  430  lines 
of  prose,  added  on  his  own  account  364  more  lines  of  prose 
and  46  of  iambic  and  trochaic  rhyme,  and  thus  produced 
the  extant  text,  amounting,  in  the  numeration  of  Wilson's 
edition,  to  2,705  lines.  It 'takes  a  brave  man  to  produce 
so  precise  a  result  from  an  admittedly  corrupt  text.  It  is 
quite  possible  that  there  may  be  some  cutting  in  Measure 
for  Measure  as  we  have  it.  The  total  number  of  short  lines 
is  not  out  of  the  way  for  a  play  of  this  period,  and  many  of 
them  are  normal.  A  few,  however,  read  awkwardly,  and 
may  indicate  gaps.  Moreover,  although  Shakespeare  does 
(cf.  p.  231)  intrbduce  mute  or  almost  mute  personages, 
there  are  several  in  this  play;  a  Friar  Thomas,  if  he  is 
not  the  same  as^  Friar  Peter,  in  i.  3;  a  Francisca  in  i.  4; 
a  Justice,  if  he  is  not  the  same  as  the  Provost,  in  ii.  i ;  a 
Varrius  in  iv.  5,  where  also  a  Flavius,  who  never  appears, 
is  sent  for,  It  is  possible  that  some  of  these  parts  may  once 


Chap.  IX  MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE  455 

have  been  longer.    Varrius  and  Flavius,  in  particular, 
occur  in  one  of  two  very  scrappy  scenes  at  the  end  of 
Act  iv,  where  they  are  involved  in  some  rather  unintelli- 
gible manoeuvring  by  the  Duke.   It  is  less  easy  to  be  sure 
that  the  Duke's  reflections  in  iv.  i.  60-5  have  been  trans- 
ferred, as  Wilson  thinks,  from  an  original  place  contiguous 
to  those  in  iii.  2.  196-200,  in  order  to  cover  a  textual  gap. 
If  they  stood  together,  there  would  be  a  very  awkward 
repetition  of  the  word  'greatness'.  However  this  may  be, 
the  analogy  of  other  plays  shows  us  that  cuts  often  came 
far  short  of  a  'drastic  abridgement*.  Nor  do  I  think  that 
Wilson  is  safe  in  resting  upon  the  length  of  Tempest  a 
theory  that  court  performances  were  normally  limited  to 
some  2,000  lines.    Some  on  record  lasted  late  enough  to 
allow  for  three  hours,  or  about  3,000  lines.1   If  there  has 
been  any  cutting,  then  it  need  not  have  been  extensive, 
and  need  not  have  been  as  early  as  1 604.   And  if  there  has 
also  been  any  interpolation,  that  may  have  accompanied 
the  cutting  itself.  The  song  at  iv.  I.  i  is  good  enough  for 
any  one.    If  not  Shakespeare's,  one  could  fancy  it  Cam- 
pion's. The  statement  in  Munro,  i.  202,  that  Isaac  Walton 
ascribed  it  to  Marlowe  is  an  error.  But  it  recurs,  with 
a  less  good  second  verse,  more  clearly  within  Fletcher's 
compass,  in  The  Bloody  Brother,  which  several  experts  on 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher  place  before  1623;  and  in  this 
form  it  is  reproduced  in  the  1640  volume  of  Shake- 
speare's Poems  (cf.  p.  557).    A  musical  interpolation  in  a 
Jacobean  revival  is  always  possible.  Certainly,  the  Duke's 
unusual  trochaic  rhymes  at  iii.  2.  275,  not  unlike  those  in 
the  Gower  choruses  of  Pericles^  are  not  much  like  Shake- 
speare.   But  I  feel  little  confidence  in  Wilson's  stylistic 
reasons  for  assigning  24  decasyllabic  rhymed  lines,  and 
794  lines  of  prose  to  a  reviser.  There  is  no  continuous 
rhyme,  as  in  AITs  WelL  The  24  decasyllabics  are  couplets 
of  dismissal,  mostly  in  the  mouth  of  the  Duke,  who  is 
choric,  like  the  old  folk  in  AIVs  Well^  and  they  do  not 
seem  to  me  markedly  inferior  to  some  at  least  of  those 
which  Wilson  leaves  to  Shakespeare.  As  for  the  prose, 

1  Eliz.  Stage,  i*  225$  iv.  122. 


PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

Wilson's  strongest  point  is  on  i.  2,  in  one  section  of  which 
Mrs.  Overdone  knows  of  Claudio's  offence,  while  a  few 
lines  later  she  seems  to  receive  it  as  news.    Either  Shake- 
speare has  been  unusually  careless,  even  for  him,  or  there 
has  been  some  alteration.  But  in  the  literary  quality  of  this 
and  other  ribald  scenes  of  Pompey  and  his  fellows,  I  can- 
not see  any  marked  difference  between  the  'sheer  mud, 
dreary,  dead'  of  what  Wilson  gives  to  the  reviser  and  the 
'full  Shakespearean  flavour*  of  what  he  spares.  Of  course 
he  has  picked  out  the  best  bits  (i.  2.  83-1 1 8 ;  ii.  i.  41-201 ; 
iv,  3.  1-59)  for  Shakespeare.   But  there  is  little  of  that 
full  flavour  anywhere,  and  even  in  the  muddiest  passages 
an  occasional  sniff  of  it  may  be  caught.   The  reviser  is 
credited  also  with  some  scraps  of  prose  alternating  with 
verse,  mainly  from  the  mouth  of  Lucio,  whose  part  Wilson 
thinks  that  he  considerably  expanded.    Such  transitions 
from  one  medium  to  another  are  common  enough  (cf. 
p.  182)  in  the  plays,  and  it  is  hardly  justifiable  to  assume 
a  second  hand,  merely  because  they  are  carried  to  an 
extreme  here  and  the  reason  for  a  change  of  mood  is 
not  always  obvious.  So  far  I  have  been  dealing  with  sup- 
posed additions  of  the  reviser's  own.  The  rest  of  the  prose, 
much  of  it  colourless  and  merely  concerned  with  the 
machinery  of  the  plot,  is  on  Wilson's  theory  an  expansion 
of  135  lines  of  lost  Shakespearean  verse.   Here  the  evi- 
dence offered  is  different.   There  are  numerous  circum- 
locutory phrases,  such  as  'Let  me  desire  to  know',  or  'This  • 
I  can  let  you  understand',  which  'seem  absurd  in  prose', 
but  'would  be  quite  natural  in  verse'.    And  there  are 
Verse-fossils'  embedded  in  the  prose.    I  think  that  a 
glance  at  the  concordance,  where  the  word  'desire',  for 
example,  occupies  more  than  three  columns,  would  have 
shown  Wilson  that  the  complimentary  circumlocutions  are 
very  common  indeed  in  Shakespeare's  prose.    He  bur- 
lesques them  himself  in  Merry  fPives,  i.  2.  9,  where  Evans 
says,  'The  letter  is,  to  desire  and  require  her  to  solicit  your 
master's  desires  to  Mistress  Anne  Page'.  And  of  course 
the  'verse-fossils*  are  (cf .  p.  2  3  3)  an  equally  common  feature. 
Moreover,  in  Measure  for  Measure  they  are  not  confined, 


Chap.  IX  MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE  457 

as  the  theory  requires,  to  the  passages  where  it  suspects 
an  expansion  of  verse,  but  are  foundalso  in  the  original  prose 
ascribed  to  Shakespeare  and  to  the  reviser  respectively. 

Robertson,  with  Wilson's  theory  before  him,  produces 
his  inevitable  alternative.  Measure  for  Measure  is  'a  working 
recast  by  Shakespeare  of  a  play  drafted  by  Chapman  on 
the  basis  of  the  older  play  of  Whetstone,  or  perhaps  of  an 
earlier  condensation  of  that  two-part  drama  into  a  single 
one'.  Greene  is  only  slightly  hinted  at  as  a  possible  pre- 
decessor of  Chapman.  I  need  not  discuss  Robertson's  case 
in  detail.  It  is  closely  analogous  to  that  for  All's  Well^ 
although  I  think  even  less  plausible.  Those  who  accept  the 
one  are  likely  to  accept  the  other. 

The  substantial  source  of  Measure  for  Measure  was 
George  Whetstone's  Promos  and  Cassandra  (1578).  This 
was  apparently  designed  for  the  stage,  but  had  not,  when 
Whetstone  published  his  Heftameron  in  1582,  been  per- 
formed.1 It  was  itself  based  upon  Giraldi  Cintio's  Ecatom- 
miti  (1565),  viii.  5,  and  this  perhaps  in  its  turn  upon  an 
historical  incident  of  1 547  near  Milan,  in  which  the  course 
of  the  Duke  was  taken  by  Fernando  Gonzaga,  the  governor 
of  the  province.  Sarrazin  finds  analogies  between  Shake- 
speare's Duke  and  a  later  Vincentio  Gonzaga,  Duke  of 
Mantua  from  1587  to  1612. 

XXVII.   OTHELLO 

[S.R.  1621.]  6°  Octobris,  1621.  Thomas  Walkley. 
Entred  for  his  copie  vnder  the  handes  of  Sir  George  Buck, 
and  Master  Swinhoe  warden,  The  Tragedie  of  Othello, 
the  moore  of  Venice.  yjd  (Arber,  iv.  59). 
[Qi.  1622.]  The  Tragoedy  of  Othello,  The  Moore  of 
Venice.  As  it  hath  beene  diuerse  times  acted  at  the  Globe, 
and  at  the  Black-Friers,  by  his  Maiesties  Seruants.  Writ- 
ten by  William  Shakespeare.  [Okes's  device  (McKerrow 
316)]  London,  Printed  by  Nicholas)  O(kes)  for  Thomas 
Walkley,  and  are  to  be  sold  at  his  shop,  at  the  Eagle  and 
Child,  in  Brittans  Bursse.  1622.  [Head-title}  The  Tragedy 

1  Elix.  Stage,  iii.  512. 


458  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

of  Othello  the  Moore  of  Venice  [Running-title]    The 

Tragedy  of  Othello  The  Moore  of  Venice. 

[Epistle  (App.  B,  no.  xlix)  headed  The  Stationer  to  the  Reader', 

signed  Thomas  Walkley'.  Acts  ii.  i,  iv,  v  marked.] 

Facsimile.  C.  Praetorius  (1885,  Sh.  Q.  xxxi,  ed.  H.  A.  EvansJ. 

[Fi.  1623.]  [Catalogue]  Othello,  the  Moore  of  Venice. 
[Tragedies,pp.  310-39,  sign,  ss  3v-w  6r.  Head-title']  The 
Tragedie  of  Othello,  the  Moore  of  Venice.   [Running-title'] 
The  Tragedie  of  Othello  the  Moore  of  Venice. 
[Acts  and  sec.  marked.   The  Names  of  the  Actors'  at  end.] 
[S.R.  1628.]   imo  Marti  1627.  Master  Richard  Hawkins. 
Assigned  ouer  vnto  him  by  Thomas  Walkley,  and  Con- 
sent of  a  Court  holden  this  Day  all  the  estate  right  title  and 
Interest  which  he  hath  in  these  Copies  following  . .  viz1 . . 
Orthello  the  more  of  Venice.    (Arber,  iv.  1 94.) 

[Q  2.  1630.]    The  Tragcedy  of  Othello,  The  Moore  of 

Venice.  As  it  hath  beene  diuerse  times  acted  at  the  Globe, 

and  at  the  Black  Friers,  by  his  Majesties    Seruants. 

Written  by  William  Shakespeare.   [Mathewes's  device 

(McKerrow    i88b)]   London,   Printed   by  A(ugustine) 

M(athewes)  for  Richard  Hawkins,  and  are  to  be  sold  at  his 

shoppe  in  Chancery-Lane,  neere  Sergeants-Inne.   1630, 

[Head-  and  Running-titles]   The  Tragedy  of  Othello  the 

Moore  of  Venice. 

[ii.  i;  iii.  i;  iv.  i;  v.  i  marked.] 

Facsimile.  C.  Praetorius  (1885,  Sh.  Q.  xxxii,  ed.  H.  A.  Evans). 

[S.R.  1638.]  29°Maij  1638.  Master  Mead  and  Master 
Meredith.  Entred  for  their  Copies  by  order  of  a  full 
Court  held  the  fifth  day  of  June  Last  (1637)  according  to 
the  request  of  Vrsula  Hawkins  widdow  (late  wife  of 
Richard  Hawkins  deceased)  then  present  in  Court  All 
these  Copies  and  parts  of  Copies  following  which  did 
belong  vnto  her  said  husband  as  followeth  . . .  Orthello  the 
More  of  Venice  a  play . . .  (Arber,  iv.  420). 


[S.R.  .1639.]  25th  of  January  1638  Master  William 
Leake.  Assigned  ouer  vnto  him  by  vertue  of  a  warrant 
vnder  the  hands  and  scales  of  Master  Mead  and  Master 


Chap.  IX  OTHELLO  459 

Meredith  and  with  the  Consent  of  a  full  Court  of  Assis- 
tants holden  this  day.  All  the  Estate  Right  Title  and 
Interest  which  the  said  Master  Mead  and  Master  Mere- 
dith haue  in  these  Copies  and  partes  of  Copies  following 
which  were  Entred  vnto  them  from  Mistris  Hawkins  the 
29th  of  May  last . . .  viz* . . .  Orthello  the  More  of  Venice 
a  Play  , . .  (Arber,  iv.  452). 

[Q3-  l655-]  •  •  •  Tlie  fourth  Edition  .  . ,  Printed  for  Wil- 
liam Leak  . . .  1655. 

Parallel-Texts.  T.  R.  Price  (1890,  Bankside);  M.  M.  A.  Schrder 
(1909). 

Modern  Editions.  H.  H.  Furness  (1886,  New  Variorum);  H.  C. 
Hart  (1903, 1928,  Arden)\  L.  Mason  (1918,  Yale);  C.  H.  Herford 
(1920,  ffarwick). 

Dissertations.  R.  O'Connell,  Desdemona  in  the  Flesh  (1885,  6N.Q.  xi. 
147);  W.  R.  Turnbull,  0.,  A  Critical  Study  (1892);  E.  Engd,  Zur  Urge- 
schichte  des  O.  (1899,  7-XXXV.27I);  A.  C.  Bradley,  The  Additions  in  the 
Folio  Text  ofO.(i  904, 8 A.  Tragedy,  429);  E.  Law,  0.  on  All  Hallows  Day, 
'1604  (1910,  Oct.  31,  Times);  C.  Nolte,  Die  Vterlieferung  von  Shs  0. 
(1923);  L.  Winstanley,  O.as  the  Tragedy  of  Italy  (1924);  A.  H.Krappe, 
A  Byzantine  Source  ofSh's  O.  (1924,  MJ*Jf.  xxxix,  1 56);  W.  A.  Bullock, 
The  Sources  of  0.  (1925,  M.L.N.  xL  226). 

Q  and  F  are  both  good  and  fairly  well-printed  texts; 
and  they  clearly  rest  substantially  upon  the  same  original. 
A  feature  of  this  seems  to  have  been  the  occasional  writing 
of  lines  of  verse,  perhaps  (cf.  p.  184)  for  emphasis,  as 
two  separate  half-lines.  Q  and  F  have  generally  preserved 
this  at  different  points,  but  at  i.  I.  53-4  they  concur.  The 
variations  between  the  texts  throw  some  light  on  their 
origins.  F  has  eliminated,  more  rigorously  than  usual, 
profanities  which  stand  in  Q,  Each  text  contains  passages 
not  found  in  the  other.  The  F  omissions  are  trifling  and 
doubtless  due  to  error.  So  are  many  of  those  in  Q. 
Twice  (i.  3.  194;  iv.  2.  73-6)  the  cause  is  obvious,  in 
taking  off  from  the  second  instead  of  the  first  of  two  lines 
with  identical  last  words.  Twice  (i.  2.  65;  i.  3.  63)  Q 
seems  to  have  regarded  parenthesis  brackets  in  the  original 
as  marks  for  deletion.  Some  longer  omissions  in  Q  require 
to  be  explained  otherwise.  Some  of  these  passages  have 


460  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

been  taken  for  later  Shakespearean  additions  in  F,  There 
is,  however,  no  example  in  which  this  can  be  proved  to 
be  so,  and  on  the  other  hand  in  most  cases  (i.  i.  122-38 ; 
i.  2,  72-7;  i.  3.  24-30;  iii.  3.  383-90;  iv.  3-  3i~53>  55~7> 
60-3,  87-104;  v.  2.  246-8,  266-72)  the  omission  is 
accompanied  by  alteration  in  neighbouring  lines,  or  leaves 
the  sense  of  the  context  abrupt  or  inadequate.  Q  is  pretty 
clearly  cut  here.  It  is  true  that  the  omissions  in  iv.  3 
include  the  Willow  Song,  and  that  a  song  forms  a  natural 
interpolation.  But  an  interpolator  would  not  have  added 
the  scraps  of  dialogue  with  which  Desdemona's  is  broken, 
or  the  reference  back  to  it  in  v.  2.  246-8.  There  is  no 
reason  why  the  other  longer  Q  omissions  (iii.  3.  453-60; 
iv.  i.  38-44;  iv.  2.  151-64;  v.  2.  151-4,  185-93)  should 
not  be  cuts  also.  If  so,  the  cutting  amounts  to  125  lines; 
and,  as  usual,  it  mainly  affects  long  speeches  or  sections  of 
dialogues.  Of  course  the  song  may  have  been  omitted,  not 
to  shorten  a  performance,  but  because  the  actor  could  not 
sing.  The  purely  verbal  variants  between  Q  and  F  are  very 
numerous.  The  great  majority  are  due  to  different  readings 
of  the  same  word  in  the  original,  and  generally,  although 
by  no  means  always,  F  has  the  better.  But  sometimes  the 
divergence  is  greater  than  mere  misreading  will  explain. 
There  are  some  'equivalents'  probably  due  (cf.  p.  180)  to 
subconscious  substitution.  There  are  some  traces  of 
sophistication  by  the  F  editor.  But  I  think  there  must  be 
perversion  in  Q.  There  are  a  good  many  passages  in 
which  more  than  one  word  is  varied,  and  here  Q  often 
seems  to  have  attempted  an  emendation  of  language  or 
metre,  or  of  a  phrase  found  unintelligible,  or  to  have  started 
(iii.  4.  74-5;  v.  i.  86)  with  a  misreading  and  altered  the 
context  to  suit  it.  These  features  suggest  a  transcriber 
rather  than  a  printer,  and  the  relation  becomes  intelligible 
if  we  regard  F  as  printed  from  the  original  and  Q  from  a 
not  very  faithful  transcript,  without  a  few  passages  cut  in 
representation.  It  must  have  been  an  early  transcript,  in 
view  of  the  profanities.  Whether  it  was  made  for  stage 
purposes  or  for  a  private  collector  one  can  hardly  say.  The 
F  stage-directions  seem  to  have  been  altered  from  those  in 


Chap.  IX  OTHELLO  461 

Q,  which  are  normal.  They  tend  to  be  shorter;  they  have 
fewer  notes  for  properties  and  the  like;  the  order  of  the 
names  in  entries  differs.  The  only  notable  addition  is  at 
v.  2.  i  where,  for  the  'Enter  Othello  with  a  light'  of  Q,  F 
has  'Enter  Othello,  and  Desdemona  in  her  bed*.  But  the 
bed  is  elsewhere  (v.  2.  198)  in  Q.  The  Q  stage-directions 
may  well  be  the  author's,  but  the  transcriber  might  have 
added  some  marginal  notes  for  action,  not  in  F.  It  is  per- 
haps noteworthy  that  Q  regularly  spells  Emillia,  Roder- 
igo,  Montanio,  for  the  Emilia,  Rodorigo,  Montano  of  F. 
Q2  seems  to  have  been  set-up  from  Qi,  but  corrected  and 
the  omissions  supplied,  either  from  F,  or  as  the  Cambridge 
editors,  perhaps  unnecessarily,  suggest,  from  a  manu- 
script closely  resembling  that  used  by  F. 

I  do  not  think  there  are  any  cuts  common  to  Q  and  F. 
A  few  short  lines  seem  abrupt,  but  short  lines  have 
become  very  common  in  plays  of  this  period.  There  is  an 
odd  patch  of  prose  at  i.  3.  221—9,  probably  deliberate,  to 
introduce  a  change  of  subject  and  tone,  and  led  up  to  by 
the  last  line  of  the  foregoing  speech,  which  is  prose, 
although  Q  turns  it  into  verse.  Similarly,  the  rhyme  of 
i.  3.  202—19,  which  Robertson  *  claims  as  an  interpola- 
tion by  Chapman,  is  appropriate  to  the  sententious  com- 
ments which  it  conveys;  the  Duke  calls  his  contribution 
'a  sentence'.  Gildon  (App.  C,  no.  xxi)  had  been  told  that 
Shakespeare  put  some  words  and  expressions  'perhaps 
not  so  agreeable  to  his  Character'  into  the  part  of  lago,  for 
the  benefit  of  a  comedian  who  played  it.  This  may  refer 
to  the  ribald  rhymes  of  lago's  discourse  with  Desdemona 
of  ii.  i.  i o  1-6 1,  which  Hart,  who  finds  parallels  with 
Nicholas  Breton's  Choice^  Chance  and  Change  (i  606),  would 
like  to  regard  as  an  interpolation.  But  it  is  in  both  texts, 
and  Breton  probably  borrowed.  The  passage,  like  the 
dull  Clown  in  iii.  i,  4,  reads  like  a  survival  of  the  manner 
of  All  Js  Welltt\&  Measure  for  Measure  from  which  Shake- 
speare has  for  the  most  part  purged  himself  in  Othello. 

A  court  performance  on  i  November  1604  (App.  D) 
gives  one  limit  of  date,  and  this  was  no  doubt  the  'indis- 

1  Sk.  and  Ch.  zi6. 


462  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

putable  evidence'  which  led  Malone,  who  formerly  thought 
Othello  one  of  the  latest  plays,  to  put  it  in  i6o4.x  A  later 
date  has  been  claimed  for  iii.  4.  47,  'our  new  heraldry  is 
hands,  not  hearts,'  on  the  ground  that  it  alludes  to  the 
adoption  of  'the  bloody  hand  of  Ulster'  as  a  badge  for  the 
new  order  of  baronets  in  1 6 1 1 .  But  the  antithesis  of  hands 
and  hearts  is  widespread,  and  there  are  close  parallels  to 
Shakespeare's  use  of  it  in  Peele,  Polyhymnia  (1590),  190, 
where  also  it  takes  an  heraldic  form,  and  Sir  William  Corn- 
wallis,  Essayes  (1600-1),  xxviii.  Collier  (App,  F,  xi,  c,  <?) 
forged  entries  in  Egerton  and  Dulwich  manuscripts  to 
support  earlier  dating.  A  production  in  1 604  is  consonant 
with  the  stylistic  evidence,  and  would  give  time  for  an 
apparent  echo  of  the  Moor's  murder  in  Dekker  and 
Middleton's  i  Honest  Whore^  i.  1 , 37,  of  that  year.2  Othello 
held  the  stage  well;  performances  are  traceable  in  1610, 
at  court  in  1612-13,  in  1629,  in  1635,  anc^  at  court  on 
8  December  1636  (App.  D).  Burbadge  and  Swanston 
played  Othello  and  Taylor  lago.3  Collier  has  an  epigram, 
of  doubtful  authenticity,  ascribing  Othello  also  to  Field 
(App.  F,  xi,  K). 

The  source  is  Giraldi  Cintio's  Ecatommiti  (i  565),  iii.  7, 
but  here  the  Moor  and  the  Ensign  have  no  names.  lago  is 
the  ordinary  Italian  form  of  James;  it  is  not  known  where 
Othello  came  from.  A  ballad  on  the  story  cited  by  Collier 
is  (App.  F,  xi,  c)  a  forgery,  O'Connell  cites  from  P.  G. 
Molmenti,  Vecchie  Stone  (1882),  77,  a  case  of  an  actual 
wife-murder  by  a  Venetian  noble  in  1602.  The  Willow 
Song  (iv.  3.  41)  may  be  borrowed.  A  text  with  musical 
notation  is  printed  in  Noble  152  from  Addl.  MS.  15117, 
f.  1 8  (c.  1 6 1 5),  and  the  music  by  itself  is  in  a  lute-book  by 
Thomas  Dallis  of  Cambridge,  dated  I583.4  A  play  given 
before  James,  just  after  a  treaty  with  Spain,  obviously 
cannot  be,  as  Miss  Winstanley  thinks,  a  symbolical  alle- 
gory, at  once  of  the  domination  of  Italy  by  Spain,  and  of 
the  relations  of  Philip  II  (Othello)  with  his  wife  and  his 

x  Var.  ii.  404;  Edition  (1800)  of        3  Ibid.  ii.  309;  iv.  371. 
Dryden'a  Grounds  of  Criticism,  458.  *  T.CJ).  MS.  410. 

*  EUz.  Stage,  iii.  294. 


Chap.  IX  OTHELLO  463 

minister  Antonio  Perez  (lago).  If  such  an  intention  had 
been  intelligible,  the  censor  would  not  have  passed  the 
play;  if  not,  it  would  have  been  pointless. 

XXVIII.   KING  LEAR 

[S.R.  1607.]  26  Novembris.  Nathanael  Butter  John 
Busby.  Entred  for  their  Copie  under  thandes  of  Sir 
George  Buck  knight  and  Thwardens  A  booke  called. 
Master  William  Shakespeare  his  historye  of  Kinge  Lear, 
as  yt  was  played  before  the  Kinges  maiestie  at  Whitehall 
vppon  Sainct  Stephens  night  at  Christmas  Last,  by  his 
maiesties  servantes  playinge  vsually  at  the  Globe  on  the 
Banksyde  vjd  (Arber,  iii.  366). 

[Qi.  1608  j  M.  William  Shak-spcare:  His  True  Chronicle 
Historic  or  the  life  and  death  of  King  Lear  and  his  three 
Daughters.  With  the  vnfortunate  life  of  Edgar,  sonne  and 
heire  to  the  Earle  of  Gloster,  and  his  sullen  and  assumed 
humor  of  Tom  of  Bedlam :  As  it  was  played  before  the  Kings 
Maiestie  at  Whitehall  vpon  S.  Stephans  night  in  Christ- 
mas Hollidayes.  By  his  Maiesties  seruants  playing 
vsually  at  the  Gloabe  on  the  Bancke-side.  [George  and 
Lionel  Snowden's  or  Nicholas  Okes's  device  (McKerrow 
3 1 6)]  London,  Printed  for  Nathaniel  Butter,  and  are  to  be 
sold  at  his  shop  in  Pauls  Church-yard  at  the  signe  of  the 
Pide  Bull  neere  S*.  Austins  Gate.  1608  [Head-title] 
M  William  Shak-speare  His  Historic,  of  King  Lear, 
[Running-title']  The  Historic  of  King  Lear. 
[Sheets  D,  E,  F,  G,  K  are  found  in  corrected  and  uncorrected  forms 
(cf.  p.  174).  There  is  a  note  on  the  variants  by  W.  W.  Greg  in 
R.E.S.  i.  469.] 
Facsimile.  C.  Praetorius  (1885,  Sh.  Q.  xxxiii,  ed.  P.  A.  Daniel). 

[Q2.  1619.]  M,  William  Shake-speare,  His  True 
Chronicle  History  of  the  life  and  death  of  King  Lear,  and 
his  three  Daughters.  With  the  vnfortunate  life  of  Edgar, 
sonne  and  heire  to  the  Earle  of  Glocester,  and  his  sullen 
and  assumed  humour  of  Tom  of  Bedlam,  As  it  was  plaid 
before  the  Kings  Maiesty  at  White-Hall,  vppon  S.  Stephens 
night,  in  Christmas  Hollidaies.  By  his  Maiesties  Seruants, 


464.  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

playing  vsually  at  the  Globe  on  the  Banck-side.  [William 
Jaggard's  device  (McKerrow  283)]  Printed  for  Nathaniel 
Butter.    1608,    [Head-title,  under  ornament  with  royal 
arms,  used  by  John  Roberts  and  William  Jaggard]    M. 
William  Shake-speare  His  History,  of  King  Lear.   [Run- 
ning-title] The  History  of  King  Lear. 
[On  the  misdating,  cf.  p.  1 33.] 
Facsimile.  C.  Praetorius  (1885,  Sh.  Q.  xxxiv,  ed.  P.  A.  Daniel). 

[Fi.  1623.]  [Catalogue]  King  Lear.  [Tragedies,  pp.  283- 
3°9>  s*gn-   qq  2~ss  3r-  Head-  and  Running-titles]     The 
Tragedie  of  King  Lear. 
[Acts  and  sec.  marked.] 

[Q3-  l655-J  •  •  •  Dinted  by  Jane  Bell,  and  are  to  be  sold 
at  the  East-end  of  Christ-Church.  1655. 
Parallel-Texts.  A.  A.  Adee  (1890,  Bankside)-,  W.  Victor  (1892). 
Modern  Editions.   H.  H.  Furness  (1880,  New  Variorum}\  W.  J. 
Craig  (1901,  1927,  Arden}\  D.  Nichol  Smith  (1902,  Warwick}\ 
W.  L.  Phelps(i9i7,r*/4 

Dissertations.  N.Delius,  fiber  die  urspriingtichen  Textdes  K.L.  (1875,  J. 
x.  50;  tr.  1875,  N.S.S.  Trans.  125);  H.  von  Friesen,  fiber  Shs  Quellen  zu 
K.L.  (1877,  J.  xii.  169);  R.  Koppel,  Textkritische  Studien  iiber  Shs 
R.  Ill  und  X.L.  (1877);  F.  G.  Fleay,  The  Date  and  the  Text  of  K.L. 
(1879,  Aug.  I,  Robinson's  Epitome  of  Literature)^  A.  Schmidt,  Zur  Text- 
kritikdesK.L.(i%%Q,4nglia,i\\.  i);  E.Richter,£/w  Altportugiesische Ver- 
sion der  K.L.-Sage  (1901,  E.S.  xxix.  208);.  M.  W.  Sampson,  On  the  Date 
of  K.L.  (1902,  M.L.Q.  v.  71);  A.  C.  Bradley,  Notes  on  K.L.  (1904, 
Sh'n.  Tragedy,  443);  E.  Bode,  Die  Learsage  vor  Sh.  (1904);  W.  Perrett, 
The  Story  ofK.L.from  Geoffrey  ofMonmouth  to  Sh.  (1904);  R.  A.  Law,  On 
the  Date  of  K.L.  (1906,  PM.LJI.  xxi,  462);  R.  B,  Merriman,  On  the 
Date  ofK.L.  (1908,  May  23,  Athen^  R.  H.  Cunnington,  The  Revision  of 
K.L-  (1910,  M.L.R.  v.  445);  W.  D.  Moriarty,  The  Bearing  on  Dramatic 
Sequence  of  the  Varia  in  R.  Ill  and  K.L.  (1913,  M.P.  x.  45 1);  R.  Fischer, 
Quellen  zu  K.L.  (1914);  L.  Winstanley,  Macbeth,  K.L.  and  Contemporary 
History  (1922);  E.  Sievers,  Shs  Anteil am  K.L.  (1925,  Anglica,  ii.  173). 

Most  of  the  sheets  of  Qi  are  found  both  in  corrected  and 
uncorrected  states,  variously  combined  in  the  existing 
examples;  sheet  C  is  in  three  states.  Some  of  the  correc- 
tions suggest  further  reference  to  copy;  others  are  clearly 
due  to  erroneous  conjecture;  and  it  is  possible  that  in 
carrying  them  out  some  further  blunders  were  .made  by 


Chap.  IX  KING  LEAR  455 

the  compositor,  Qa  was  set-up  from  a  Qi  containing 
uncorrected  sheets  D,  G,  H,  with  some  further  con- 
jectural corrections.  Fi  mainly  rests  upon  an  indepen- 
dent manuscript,  but  it  too  is  shown  by  a  continuance  of 
errors  and  a  general  orthographic  resemblance  to  have 
been  set  up  from  a  Qi  containing  uncorrected  sheets 

E,  H,  K.    The  stage-directions  like  the  text,  have  been 
revised.   They  are  normal,  in  both  cases.   But  F  omits 
a  good  many  Q  notes  for  properties  and  action,  and  adds 
a  few,  together  with  many  'noises1.   The  texts  are  sub- 
stantially derived  from  the  same  original.  There  are  a  good 
many  verbal  variants,  and  where  one  is  clearly  wrong,  the 
better  reading,  except  for  a  dozen  or  score  of  cases,  is  in 

F.  Subject,  therefore,  to  its  usual  sophistications,  F  must 
have  the  preference  where  the  variants  are  indifferent. 
Q  seems  to  contain  some  'connective*  phrases  by  actors, 
and  many  of  its  misreadings  might  well  be  due  either  to 
actors'  blunders  or  to  mishearing.  There  is  not  a  great 
deal  of  mislineation  in  F,  and  most  of  what  there  is  may 
be  explained  by  the  setting-up  from  Q,  or  by  the  rapid 
transitions  in  several  scenes  between  verse  and  prose.  On 
the  other  hand,  mislineation  is  a  constant  feature  in  Q. 
The  verse  is  often  put  wrong  by  an  initial  error,  and  runs 
from  central  pause  to  central  pause,  until  another  error 
or  the  end  of  a  speech  recovers  it.    Occasionally  it  is 
altogether  unmetrical.   Prose  is  printed  as  verse.    Still 
more  often  is  verse  printed  as  prose,  throughout  long 
passages,  in  a  way  which  cannot  be  explained  either  by 
errors  of  composition  or  by  marginal  insertions  in  copy. 
Moreover,  Q  has  practically  no  punctuation  except  com- 
mas,  even  in  places  where  both  logic  and  enunciation 
require  heavier  stops  and  these  are  supplied  by  F.     I 
think  that  the  characteristics  of  Q  point  to  a  reported  text. 
It  is,  of  course,  a  much  better  version  than  the  bad 
Quartos  of  2,  3  Henry  FI,  Romeo  and  Juliet^  Henry  V, 
Merry  Wives^  and  Hamlet.  In  particular  it  does  not  mis- 
place bits  of  dialogue  within  a  scene,  or  bring  in  bits  from 
other  scenes  or  other  plays.  Possibly  it  was  produced  (cf. 
p.  1 6 1 )  by  shorthand  and  not  memorization.  The  reporter, 

3X42.1  H  H 


466  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Cliap.  IX 

except  for  subconscious  substitutions  by  himself  or  the 
actors,  has  not  got  his  words  badly.  The  failure  is  in  put- 
ting his  continuous  notes  into  metre,  and  in  punctuating 
them.  And  these  tasks  he  seems  to  have  largely  shirked, 
If  reported,  the  Q  text  was  presumably  surreptitious. 
There  is  nothing  irregular  about  the  registration  of  the 
play,  but  it  is  worth  noting  that  it  was  Nathaniel  Butter 


although  corrupt  enough,  has  not  the  long  passages  of 
prose  for  verse  or  the  peculiar  punctuation  of  Lear. 

.  Apart  from  stray  words  and  phrases,  Q  omits  about  i  oo 
lines  found  in  F,  and  F  omits  about  300  lines,  including 
the  whole  of  iv.  3,  found  in  Q.  These  differences  have  been 
much  discussed,  and  several  writers  have  regarded  them 
as  due  to  deliberate  revision  of  the  play.  Thus  Koppel 
argues  that  the  passages  special  to  Q  represent  a  series  of 
added  touches,  as  a  result  of  which  the  play  became  too 
long,  and  required  the  abridgement  shown  by  the  F  omis- 
sions. The  arguments  used  carry  no  conviction  to  me. 
No  doubt 'the  play  is  better  with  the  special  Q  passages 
than  without  them,  but  so  it  would  be  on  any  reasonable 
hypothesis  of  their  nature.  Similarly  the  reasons  given  for 
regarding  some  of  the  F  omissions  as  improvements  in  the 
interests  of  dramatic  clarity  and  directness  seem  to  me 
highly  subjective.  The  play,  as  pointed  out  by  Bradley, 
is  in  any  case  unusually  full,  even  for  Shakespeare,  of 
inconsistencies  and  obscurities  of  action,  and  it  is  impos- 
sible to  stress  the  resultant  effect  of  an  addition  or 
an  omission  upon  some  one  of  these.  I  take  it  that,  both 
in  Q  and  in  F,  more  than  one  cause  has  operated.  Practi- 
cally all  the  special  passages  I  believe  to  be  part  of  the 
original  text.  The  only  exception  I  should  make  is  F's 
Merlin  prophecy  by  the  Fool  in  iii.  2.  79-95,  which  is 
generally,  and  I  think  rightly,  taken  as  an  incongruous 
theatrical  interpolation.  I  see  no  sufficient  reason  for 
regarding  the  Fool's  couplet  at  i.  5.  55-6  as  another,  since 

1  Etiz,  Stage,  iii.  342. 


Chap.  IX  KING  LEAR  467 

it  is  in  both  texts.  And  Edgar's  rhymed  couplets  in  iii.  6. 
109—22,  omitted  by  F,  contain  sententious  matter,  such 
as  Shakespeare  still  rhymes  even  in  late  plays.  Apart  from 
iii.  2.  79-95, most  of  the  Q  omissions  might  well  be  errors. 
They  leave  lacunae  of  sense  or  action  at  i.  i.  41-6,  i.  2. 
118—24,  ii.  4.  142—7,  iv.  i.  6-9,  iv.  6.  169—74,    In  a 
reported  text,  actors,  reporter,  and  printer  may  all  have 
contributed.    Identical  line-ends  have  led  to  mistakes  at 
i.  i.  90  and  iii.  4.  18.    Probably  the  reporter's  lapses  of 
attention  are  mainly  responsible,  and  some  linked  omis- 
sions (ii.  4.  99—100,  104;  iii.  4.  26-7,  37-8)  and  small 
contextual  alterations  suggest  that  he  was  sometimes  aware 
of  these,  and  attempted  to  cover  them  up.   On  the  other 
hand,  there  is  some  political  and  social  criticism  in  the 
play,  and  it  is  conceivable  that  the  omission  of  i.  2. 1 18— 
24  and  iv.  6.  169-74  and  also  of  iii.  i.  22—9  may  have 
been  directed  by  a  censor.     F  omissions  in  turn  leave 
lacunae  at  i.  4.  154-69,  i.  4,  252-6,  iv.  2.  31-50,  v.  3. 
204—21.    Here  also  there  are  probably  some  printer's 
errors,  while  a  censor  may  have  operated  on  i.  2. 157—66, 
i.  4.  153-69,  iii.  6.  18-59.    But  in  the  main  we  pro- 
bably have  to  do  with  ordinary  theatrical  cutting.   It  is 
not  unintelligent,  affecting  chiefly  narratives  of  episodes  in 
France  and  elsewhere  away  from  the  main  action  (iii.  i. 
30-42;  iv.  2.  53-9;  iv.  3;  v.  i.  23-8;  v.  3.  204-21), 
some  dialogue  between  servants  (iii.  7.  -99-107;  iv.  7. 
85—98),  a  bit  of  poetic  description  (iii.  i.  7-15)5  Edgar's 
sententious  rhymes  (iii.  6.  109-22),  some  interchanges  of 
amenities  between  Albany  and  Goneril  (iv.  2.  31-50,  62- 
9).   The  chief  loss  is  in  iv.  3,  where  the  introduction,  if 
only  in  narrative,  of  Cordelia  is  important  to  bridge  the 
interval  between  her  earlier  and  later  appearances.  It  is 
idle  to  ask  whether  Shakespeare  himself  or  a  colleague 
made  these  cuts.    They  point,  of  course,  to  the  use  of ' 
stage-copy  for  F.    I  can  make  nothing  of  the  attempt  of 
Sievers  to  distribute  the  play  between  three  authors  by 
the  method  of '  Schallanalyse*. 

It  is  difficult  to  fix  the  date  of  Lear  with  precision.  The 
probable  borrowing  of  the  devil  names  (iv.  i.  62)  from 


468  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

Samuel  Harsnett's  Declaration  of  Popish  Impostures  (i  603) 
and  the  use  (iii.  4.  189)  of 'British'  for  'English'  may  per- 
haps confirm,  if  that  is  needed,  the  stylistic  evidence  that 
it  is  a  Jacobean  play.   It  was  performed  at  court  on  26 
December  1606,  and  the  natural,  if  not  absolutely  impera- 
tive, inference  from  the  particularity  of  that  record  would 
be  that  this  was  the  first  court  performance  of  a  new  play. 
The  eclipses  referred  to  in  i.  2.  112  must  be  the  nearly 
total  eclipse  of  the  sun  on  2  October  1605  and  the  partial 
eclipse  of  the  moon  on  27  September  1605.;  and  although 
it  is  true  that  these  had  been  anticipated  as  far  back  as 
John  Harvey's  Discoursive  Probleme  concerning  Prophesies 
(1588),  they  are  spoken  of  by  Gloucester  as  'these  late 
eclipses'.    The  reference  to   'machinations,  hollowness, 
treachery  and  all  ruinous  disorders'  (i.  2.  122)  is  hardly 
specific  enough  to  bear  pressing  as  a  reminiscence  of  the 
Gunpowder  Plot  of  5  November  1605.  There  is  a  fairly 
palpable  imitation  of  i.  4.  9-42  in  Edward  Sharpham's 
The  Fleir,  i,  ad  fin.    This  was  probably  produced  after 
30  January  1606,  registered  on  May  13,  and  printed  in 
ifioy.1    So  far  a  date  of  production  in  the  earlier  part  of 
1606  would  fit  best  for  Lear.  Aldis  Wright's  suggestion 
that  the  colouring  of  ii  and  iv  points  to  composition  in 
winter  and  summer  respectively  and  the  storm  of  iii  to  that 
of  March  1606  seems  to  limit  the  poet's  imagination 
rather  unduly  by  climatic  conditions.  The  difficulty  about 
1606  is  that  the  earlier  part  of  1606  seems  also  to  fit  best 
for  Macbeth,  and  that  the  time-table  left  available  by  plagues 
(cf.  p.  78)  makes  it  unlikely  that  two  Shakespearean  plays 
appeared  almost  concurrently  at  this  date  and  none  at  all 
in  1 605,  which  was  clearer  from  sickness,   On  the  whole, 
perhaps  Lear  is  the  easier  play  to  put  back  to  1605. 
Bradley  has  argued  strongly  for  its  priority  to  Macbeth  on 
the  basis  of  metrical  tests,  and  no  doubt  the  statistics  of 
these  give  him  support,  although  I  doubt  whether  much 
reliance  can  be  placed  upon  them  in  determining  the 
sequence  of  contiguous  plays,  especially  when  the  text  of 
one  pf  them,  like  that  ol  Macbeth,  may  only  be  before  us 

EKx.  Stage,  iii.  490. 


Chap.  IX  KING  LEAR  469 

in  a  much  abridged  form.  Bradley  also  thought  he  saw 
signs  of  the  influence  of  Lear  on  Marston's  Dutch 
Courtesan  (1605).  I  cannot  find  any  very  plausible 
parallel  except  a  bit  (iii.  2.  44)  about  taking  butter 'd 
shrimps  from  horses,  which  recalls  Lear,  ii,  4.  126.  It 
may  be  doubted  whether  the  jest  was  original  in  either 
play.  Moreover,  the  Dutch  Courtesan,  although  registered 
on  26  June  1605,  probably  goes  back  to  1 603-4. 1 

The  matter  is  complicated  by  the  relation  of  the  play 
to  the  old  Leir.  The  history  of  this  is  obscure,  but  it  pro- 
bably remained  unprinted  until  1605,  when  it  was 
registered  for  a  second  time  on  May  8,  apparently  in  dis- 
regard of  an  existing  copyright,  and  issued  as  'lately 
acted*.2  A  facsimile  of  the  entry  given  in  H.P.,  Folio,  xiv. 
354,  shows,  as  Arber  (iii.  289)  does  not,  that  it  was 
originally  entered  as  a  'tragedy'  and  the  description  altered 
to  'tragecall  historic'.  On  the  title-page  it  is  'chronicle 
history'.  There  is  not  much  in  this;  the  action  is  tragic, 
although  it  has  not  a  tragic  ending.  But  it  has  been 
suggested  that  Shakespeare's  play  was  already  on  the 
stage,  and  that  the  publication  was  an  attempt  to  pass  off  the 
old  play  as  his.  This  rather  disregards  the  fairly  obvious 
use  made  by  Shakespeare  of  the  old  play.  It  is  true 
that  the  story  of  Lear,  originally  due  to  the  inventive 
genius  of  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  was  available  for  him 
in  several  other  versions ;  in  Holinshed,  in  a  contribution 
by  John  Higgins  (1574)  to  the  Mirrourjor  Magistrates,  in 
Spenser's  Faerie  Queene,  ii.  10.  27-32.  All  these  he  may 
have  consulted,  as  well  as  a  variant  of  the  story,  attributed 
to  the  Saxon  Ina,  in  Camden's  Remaines  (1605).  A  ballad 
in  Richard  Johnson's  Golden  Garland  (1620)  is  likely  to 
be  later  than  Lear.  Spenser  probably  gave  him  the  form  of 
the  name  Cordelia.  Whatever  his  sources  he  handled 
them  very  freely.  But  certainly  Lear  bears  a  closer  resem- 
blance to  Leir  than  to  any  of  the  other  versions.  It  is  not 
so  much  discernible  in  echoes  of  phrase  and  situation, 
although  there  are  some  of  these,  as  in  the  foreshadowing 
of  the  characters  of  Kent  and  Oswald  by  the  Perillus  and 

Ibid.  iii.  430.  Ibid.  iv.  25. 


470  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

less  markedly  the  Messenger  of  Leir.  On  the  whole  I 
think  it  is  likely  that  Leir  had  been  'lately  acted1  shortly 
before  Lear  was  written,  and  gave  suggestions  for  it. 
There  is  no  great  probability  that  the  King's  men  them- 
selves possessed  a  manuscript  of  Leir>  and  any  reminis- 
cences of  the  1 594  performances  (cf.  p.  53)  would  be  rather 
remote.  On  the  other  hand,  the  resemblances  are  not  such 
as  to  make  it  necessary  to  suppose  that  the  printed  Leir  itself 
was  before  Shakespeare.  Indeed,  it  is  conceivable  that 
the  play  as  'lately  acted'  may  not  have  been  quite  in  the 
form  of  the  printed  book.  H.P.  ii.  338  inferred  from  the 
mention  of  'Kentes  woden  leage'  in  an  Admiral's  inven- 
tory of  1 598,  that  they  had  a  play  on  the  Lear  theme  with 
Kent  and  his  stocks  in  it,1  There  is  no  wooden  leg  in 
Munday1  s  John  a  Kent  and  John  a  Cumber?  as  we  have  it, 
and  although  there  is  a  mutilation  near  the  end  of  the  manu- 
script it  cannot  have  held  such  an  episode.*  It  is,  of  course, 
not  very  likely  that  the  King's  would  use  as  a  source  an 
unprinted  play  belonging  to  another  company. 

Tentatively  I  conclude  that  Lear  was  written  in  1605, 
possibly  not  finished  before  the  eclipses  of  the  autumn,  and 
for  some  reason,  conceivably  the  need  for  censorship,  not 
performed  at  court  until  1606.  Of  course  the  theory  of 
Miss  Winstanley  that  Lear  is  symbolical  mythology,  repre- 
senting at  once  the  Darnley  murder  and  the  massacre  of 
St.  Bartholomew,  is  not  worth  serious  examination.  Such 
a  play  could  never  have  been  performed  at  court  at  all. 
The  Gloucester  story  is  not  in  Leir  or  in  any  other  of  the 
early  versions.  It  was  based  on  that  of  a  Paphlagonian 
king  in  Sidney's  Arcadia  (1590),  ii.  10.  A  Tragoedia  von 
Lear  KMg  von  Engelandt  in  John  Green's  Dresden 
repertory  of  1626  may  have  been  derived  either  from 
Lear  or  from  Leir.* 

1  Hensfowe  Papers,  117.  3  cf.  M.  St.  C.  Byrne  in  M.S.R. 

a  £&,  Stage, iii.  446 j  cf.  p.  108.  4  Eliz.  Stage,  ii.  286. 


XXIX.    MACBETH 

[Fi.   1623.]    {Catalogue}    The  Tragedy  of   Macbeth. 
\Tragediesy  pp.  131-51,  sign.    11  6-11114,    Head-  and 
Running-titles]  The  Tragedie  of  Macbeth. 
[Acts  and  sec.  marked.] 
Facsimile.  J.  D.  Wilson  (1928). 

Modern  Editions.  W.  G.  Clark  and  W.  A.  Wright  (i  869, 0.  C7.P.); 
H.  H.  Furness  (1873,  New  Variorum);  E.  K.  Chambers  (1893, 
Warwick);  J.  M.  Manly  (1896);  M.  H.  Liddell  (1903);  H.  Con- 
rad (1907)5  H.  Cunningham  (1912,  1928,  Ar<Leri)\  C.  M.  Lewis 
(1918,  Yale). 

Dissertations.  N.  Ddius,  M.  (1841);  J.  W.  Hales,  On  the  Porter  in  M. 
(i  874,  N.S.S.  Trans.  2555  Notes  and  Essays,  273);  F.  G.  Fleay,  M.  (i  874, 
N.S.S.  Trans.  3  39;  Manual,  245),  Davenanfs  M.  and  Sh.'s  Witches  (i  884, 
Anglia,  vii.  128)5  G.  Sarrazin,  Sis  M.  und  Kyds  Sp.  Tr.  (1895,  E.S.  xri. 
328);  C.  C.  Stopes,  Sh.'s  Materials  for  M.  (i  896,  Alien,  ii.  138),  The  Scot- 
tish and  English  Macbeth  (1897,  Sh.'s  Industry,  78);  D.  L.  Chambers,  The 
Metre  ofM.  (1903)5  A.  C.  Bradley,  Notes  on  M.  (1904,  Shn.  Tragedy,  466); 
E.  Kroger,  Die  Sage  von  M.  bis  zu  Sh.  (1904);  A.  Brandl,  Zur  Forge- 
schichteder  Weird  Sisters  inM.(i92i,Lie6ermannFestgate,2$2)',L.'WirL- 
stanley,  M.,  King  Lear,  and  Contemporary  History  (1922);  W.  J.  Lawrence, 
The  Mystery  ofM.  (1928,  SA.'s  Workshop,  24)5  R.  C.  Bald,  M.  and  the 
'Short*  Plays  (1928,  R.E.S.  iv.  429). 

Macbeth  is  doubtless  printed  from  a  prompt-copy.  The 


3-85- 
cases  brought  forward  by  Bald. 

The  text  is  unsatisfactory,  not  so  much  on  account  of 
verbal  corruption,  as  of  a  rehandling  to  which  it  bears 
evidence.  This  seems  to  have  been  most  obviously  a 
matter  of  abridgement.  The  play,  as  it  stands,  is  shorter 
than  any  other  except  Comedy  of  Errors,  and  its  2,106  lines, 
even  if  allowance  is  made  for  the  spectacular  scenes,  would 
furnish  little  more  than  a  two-hours'  performance.  More- 
over, although  many  of  its  short  lines  are  otherwise  explic- 
able, a  few  (i.  2.  20,  51 ;  ii.  3.  109;  iii.  2.  32,  51 ;  iii.  4-.4J 
iv.  3.  28,  44)  are  abrupt  or  accompanied  by  obscurities, 
and  may  indicate  cuts.  Any  substantial  cutting  may  have 
involved  partial  transcription,  and  this  may,  as  Wilson 


472  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

thinks,  explain  the  mislineated  passages,  which  are  rather 
numerous  in  i-iii,  although  rare  thereafter.  There  seems 
also  to  have  been  some  manipulation  of  the  rather  scrappy 
final  battle-scene  (v.  7,  8).  Here  the  present  action  gives 
no  opportunity  for  the  removal  of  the  dead  Siward,  re- 
cited at  v.  8. 44,  and  the  stage-direction  'Enter  Fighting, 
and  Macbeth  slaine',  placed  between  two  others  at  34,  is 
inconsistent  with  the  more  dramatic  'Enter  Macduffe; 
with  Macbeths  head*  at  53.  Cutting  and  some  consequen- 
tial adaptation  may  perhaps  also  explain  the  inconsistency 
which  has  troubled  editors  in  the  accounts  of  Cawdor  in 
i.  2,  3,  the  apparent  reference  at  i.  7.  47  to  an  episode  in 
which  Macbeth  breaks  the  enterprise  of  murder  to  his  wife, 
and  the  mysterious  Third  Murderer  (may-be  Macbeth 
himself)  of  iii.  3. 

Probably  there  has  also  been  some  interpolation.  I  be- 
lieve this  to  be  confined  to  three  passages  (iii.  5 ;  iv.  1 .  39— 
43,  125-32)  in  the  witch-scenes,  which  can  be  distin- 
guished from  the  genuine  text  by  the  introduction  of 
Hecate,  by  the  use  of  an  iambic  instead  of  a  trochaic 
metre,  and  by  prettinesses  of  lyrical  fancy  alien  to  the 
main  conception  of  the  witches.  Songs  are  introduced  at 
iii.  5.  34  and  iv.  i.  43,  but  their  content  is  only  indicated 
by  the  opening  words  in  the  stage-directions.  But  the  full 
texts  occur  at  iii.  3.39  and  v.  2.  60  of  Thomas  Middleton's 
The  Witch.  This  has  some  echoes  of  genuine  passages 
in  Macbeth,  and  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  suppose  that  its 
author  was  also  the  interpolator  of  the  Shakespearean 
text.  Many  writers  have  carried  the  theory  of  interpola- 
tions in  Macbeth  much  farther  than  I  am  prepared  to  do. 
Coleridge  held  the  Porter  scene  (ii.  3.  1-47)  not  to  be 
authentic,  and  probably  now  has  few  adherents.  Others — 
Clark  and  Wright,  Fleay  (although  he  hesitated  in  1 876), 
Conrad,  and  Cunningham — have  doubted  the  whole  or 
parts  of  i.  i ;  i.  2;  i.  3.  1-37;  iii.  4.  130-44;  iv.  I ;  iv.  3. 
140-59 ;  y.  2 ;  v.  5. 47-50 ;  v.  6 ;  v.  8.  I  have  given  reasons 
for  rejecting  such  views  in  the  Warwick  edition,  and  am 
not  convinced  by  anything  which  has  been  written  since. 
Conrad's  attempt  to  isolate  v.  6  and  arbitrarily  chosen 


Chap.  IX  -  MACBETH  473 

sections  of  i.  2  and  v.  8  by  metrical  analysis  is  particularly 
futile  (cf.  p.  266),  since  he  has  only  about  100  lines  upon 
which  to  base  an  induction.  The  Witch  has  only  come 
down  to  us  in  manuscript  and  is  of  uncertain  date.  Law- 
rence would  put  it  as  early  as  the  autumn  of  1608.  Pro- 
bably he  meant  to  write  1 609,  as  he  thinks  that  Middleton 
was  utilizing  the  vogue  of  the  witch-dances  in  Jonson's 
Mask  of  Queens  on  2  February  1 609.*  And  he  supposes  the 
interpolated  version  of  Macbeth  to  have  been  that  which 
Simon  Forman  saw  at  the  Globe  in  April  1 6 10.  Forman 's 
visit  was,  however,  pretty  clearly  on  20  April  1 6 1 1  (cf. 
App.  D).  I  do  not  find  Lawrence  very  convincing,  since 
Shakespeare  himself  had  furnished  the  witch  motive.  For- 
man gives  an  outline  of  the  plot,  much  as  we  have  it, 
except  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  text  or  stage-directions 
to  confirm  or  refute  his  statement  that  Macbeth  and 
Ban  quo  came  riding  through  a  wood  in  i.  3.  The  play 
was  not,  of 'course,  new  in  1611,  even  if  it  was  new  to 
Forman.  The  style  and  metre  are  not  so  late  as  this,  and 
there  is  a  good  deal  of  cumulative  evidence  for  an  earlier 
date.  There  are  topics  of  special  interest  to  King  James; 
it  is,  of  course,  merely  a  fancy  that  the  royal  letter  to  the 
poet,  said  (App.  C,  nos.  xxvii,  xxxiv)  to  have  been  once  in 
the  possession  of  Sir  William  Davenant,  was  in  return  for 
Macbeth.  Some  of  these  allusions  would  have  been  appro- 
priate from  the  beginning  of  the  reign.  The  King's 
interest  in  witchcraft  was  of  old  standing.  The  'two-fold 
balls  and  treble  sceptres'  of  iv.  i.  121  can  have  nothing  to 
do,  as  suggested  by  some  commentators,  with  the  triple 
style  of  King  of  Great  Britain,  France,  and  Ireland, 
adopted  by  Prod.  1003  of  20  October  1604.  The  earlier 
English  style  was  triple,  and  there  were  no  sceptres  for 
France  and  Ireland.  The  'two-fold'  balls  must  be  the 
'mounds'  borne  on  the  English  and  Scottish  crowns,  and 
the  'treble  sceptres'  the  two  used  for  investment  in  the 
English  coronation  and  the  one  used  in  the  Scottish 
coronation.  James  was  'touching'  for  the  'king's  evil'  (iv. 
3.  141)  as  early  as  6  November  1604.*  The  bestowal  of 

*  EUx.  Stage,  iii.  382.  *  Venetian  Papers,  x.  193. 


474  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

Cawdor's  honours  upon  Macbeth  is  in  Holinshed,  and 
can  hardly  have  been  inspired,  as  Hunter  thought,  by  the 
investiture  of  Sir  David  Murray,  who  had  for  some  years 
held  the  lands  and  honours  of  the  attainted  Gowrie  family, 
as  Lord  Scone  on  i  April  1605.  ^  *s  true  &&*  tite  King's 
men  got  into  trouble  through  a  play  on  the  Gowrie  con- 
spiracy in  December  I6O4,1  but  Macbeth  cannot  very 
plausibly  be  regarded  as  an  apology  for  this.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  is  likely  enough  that  a  hint  for  the  witches  came 
from  Matthew  Gwinrie's  show  of  'tres  Sibyllae',  with  which 
James  was  greeted,  when  he  visited  Oxford  on  27  August 
1605.2  Subject  to  the  doubts  as  to  the  authenticity  of  ii. 
3  1-47,  a  slightly  later  date  is  probably  given  by  the 
'equivocator,  that  could  swear  in  both  the  scales  against 
either  scale;  who  committed  treason  enough  for  God's 
sake,  yet  could  not  equivocate  to  heaven'.  No  doubt  the 
Jesuit  doctrine  of  equivocation  had  been  familiar,  at  least 
since  the  trial  of  Robert  Southwell  in  1595.  But  here  it  is 
associated  with  treason,  as  it  was  at  the  trial  of  Father 
Henry  Garnet  for  complicity  with  the  Gunpowder  Plot  on 
28  March  1606.  The  passage  does  not,  however,  oblige 
us  to  put  the  play  quite  as  late  as  this,  since  an  exposure  of 
equivocation  by  Lord  Salisbury  is  said  to  have  been 
'greedily  read'  before  5  February  i6o6»3  The  reference  is 
to  his  Answer  to  Certain  Scandalous  Papers  (1606),  which 
deals  inter  alia  with  equivocation  and  cites  St.  Augustine's 
disallowance  of  it.  Two  other  allusions  in  the  same 
episode  do  not  help  very  much.  A  tailor  is  damned  'for 
stealing  out  of  a  French  hose*.  This  suggests  some  tem- 
porary fashion  of  wearing  tight  instead  of  round  hose. 
But  this  cannot  be  dated.  A  passage  often  cited  from  A. 
Nixon's  Black  Tear,  registered  on  9  May  1 606,  seems  only 
to  refer  ^  to  a  new  fashion  of  wearing  lace  on  hose.  A 
farmer  is  damned  because  he  'hang'd  himself  on  the 
expectation  of  plenty'.  But  Malone's  evidence  for  the 
low  price  of  corn  in  1606  is  good  also  for  1605  and  1607, 
when  it  was  only  a  little  higher,  and  in  fact  the  suicide  of  a 
disappointed  engrosser  of  corn  was  an  old  notion,  and  had 

«  E&z.  Stage,  i.  3*7.         a  Ibid.  i.  130$  iii.  332.         »  S.PJ).  Joe.  I,  xviii.  66, 


Chap.  IX  MACBETH  475 

been  staged  by  Ben  Jonson  in E.M.O.,  i.  3 ;  iii.  7,  8,  origin- 
ally produced  in  1599  and  revived  at  court  on  8  January 
1605.!  A  date  late  in  1605  or  early  in  1606  would  be 
consistent  with  some  echoes,  not  individually  conclusive, 
in  other  plays.  The  prick  of  ambition's  spur  (i.  7.  25-8)  is 
in  the  anonymous  Caesar's  Revenge,  1468-9,  but  this, 
although  registered  on  5  June  1606,  may  very  likely  be 
Elizabethan.2  In  The  Puritan,  iv.  3.  89,  registered  on 
6  August  1607,  but  probably  a  play  of  1606,  comes  'in 
stead  of  a  Tester,  weele  ha  the  ghost  ith  white  sheete  sit  at 
vpper  end  a'th  Table'.3  The  'ghost'  is  a  personage  in  the 
play,  but  an  allusion  to  iii.  4  may  none  the  less  be  possible. 
Another  may  be  in  Knight  of  the  Burning  Pestle,  v.  i.  20- 
30,  almost  certainly  a  play  of  1 6o7.4  It  may  not  be  a  mere 
accident  that  William  Warner  put  an  account  of  Macbeth 
into  his  Continuance  of  Albion's  England  (1606).  Some 
still  earlier  echoes  are  traced  by  Bradley  47 1  in  Marston's 
Sophonisba  (1606).  They  are  slight,  but  taken  together 
suggest  a  knowledge  of  Macbeth.  Sofhonisba  was  registered 
on  1 7  March  1 6o6,5  and  we  must  therefore  suppose  that 
the  equivocation  passage,  if  it  forms  part  of  the  original 
text,  was  written  earlier  than  the  actual  trial  of  Garnet. 
The  matter  is  complicated  by  the  corresponding  uncer- 
tainty as  to  the  date  of  Lear  (q.v.)  and  as  to  the  time- 
relation  of  its  metre  to  that  of  Macbeth.  It  is,  therefore, 
only  tentatively  that  I  put  Macbeth  early  in  1 606. 

Shakespeare's  source  was  the  Chronicle  of  Holinshed, 
itself  based,  for  the  Scottish  matter,  upon  the  Scotorum 
Historiae  (1527)  of  Hector  Boece;  and  this  in  turn,  with 
much  imaginative  elaboration,  upon  the  Scotichronicon 
(c.  1384)  of  John  Fordun  and  the  Orygynale  Cronykil  of 
Scotland  (c.  1424)  of  Andrew  Wyntown.  Holinshed  pro- 
bably used  a'  translation  of  Boece  by  John  Bellenden 
(1536).  Another,  by  William  Stewart  (1535)  remained 
in  manuscript  to  1858.  There  is  not  much  substance  in 
the  suggestions  that  some  of  Shakespeare's  departures  from 

1  EKx.  Stage,  iii.  3605  cf.  App.  D.    4  Ibid.  iii.  220. 
*  Ibid.  iv.  4.  s  Ibid.  iii.  433. 

3  Ibid.  iv.  41. 


476  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

Holinshed  are  due  to  this  or  to  Wyntown.   We  do  not 
know  whether  Macbeth  was  the  theme  of  a  tragedy  of  The 
Kinge  of  Scottes  given  at  court :  in  1 567-8,  or  of  a  Malcolm 
King  of  Scots  bought  by  the  Admiral's  men  from  Charles 
Massey  in  i6o2,2  A  'ballad  of  Macedbeth'  seems  to  have 
been  before  the  Stationers'  Company  in  1596,  but  Greg 
rejects  the  genuineness  of  the  record,  which  was  pub- 
lished by  Collier  (cf.  App.  F,  xi,  /).    William  Kempe, 
however,  in  Nine  Dates  Wonder  (i6oo\  21,  speaks  of 
'a  penny  Poet,  whose  first  making  was  the  miserable 
stolne  story  of  Macdoel,  or  Macdobeth,  or  Macsomewhat, 
for  I  am  sure  a  Mac  it  was,  though  I  neuer  had  the 
maw  to  see  it'.     It  is  unlikely  that  Shakespeare  ever 
visited  Scotland,3  and  no  importance  need  be  attached  to 
Miss  Winstanley's  theory  (cf.  p.  67)  that  Macbeth  is  a 
symbolical  allegory,  based  upon  the  Gunpowder  Plot, 
St.  Bartholomew's  Day,  the  Darnley  murder,  and  the 
relations  of  James  with  Francis  Hepburn,  fifth  Earl  of 
Bothwell. 

XXX.    ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA 

[S.R.  1608.]  20  May.  Edward  Blount.  Entred  for  his 
copie  under  thandes  of  Sir  George  Buck  knight  and 
Master  Warden  Seton  A  booke  called.  The  booke  of 
Pericles  prynce  of  Tyre.  vjd. 

Edward  Blount.  Entred  also  for  his  copie  by  the  like 
Aucthoritie.  A  booke  Called  Anthony,  and  Cleopatra.  vjd. 
(Arber,  iii.  378). 

[S.R.  1623,  with  other  plays  for  Fi:  cf.  p.  138.]  The 
Tragedie  of  Anthonie,  and  Cleopatra, 

[Fi.  1623.]  [Catalogue]  Anthony  and  Cleopater.  [Trage- 
dies, pp.  340-68,  sign,  v  v  6v-z  z  2V.    Head-title]    The 
Tragedie  of  Anthonie,  and  Cleopatra.  [Running-title"]  The 
Tragedy  of  Anthony  and  Cleopatra. 
[Act  i,  sc.  i  marked.] 
Facsimile.  ].  D.  Wilson  (1929). 

1  Eltz.  Stage,  iv.  144.  a  Ibid.  ii.  269. 

a  Ibid.  ii.  179;  iii.  435. 


Chap.  IX  ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA  477 

Modern  Editions.  R.  H.  Case  (1906, 1930,  Arden):  H.  H.  Furness 
(1907,  New  Variorwn}\  H.  S.  Canby  (1921,  Yale}. 
Dissertations.  T.  Vatke,  A.C.  und  Plntarchs Biographie  des  Antomus  (i 868, 
J.  iii.  301);  F.  Adler,  Das  Ferhaltniss  von  SAs  A.C.  zu  Plutarcks  Bio- 
graphie  des  Antonius  (1895,  J.  xxxi.  262)  A.  C.  Bradley,  A.C.  (1909, 
Oxford  Lectures  on  Poetry)\  M.  W.  MacCallum,  SL's  Roman  Plays  and 
their  Background  (1910). 

F  gives  a  fair  text,  so  far  as  verbal  corruption  goes, 
although  there  are  a  good  many  literal  misprints.  But 
there  is  also  a  good  deal  of  mislineation,  perhaps  especially 
in  the  first  half  of  the  play.  This  chiefly  affects  short 
speeches  and  the  beginnings  and  ends  of  long  ones. 
Several  short  speeches  are  printed  in  prose  instead  of 
verse  throughout.  The  trouble  often  starts  with  a  failure 
to  keep  distinct  an  initial  half-line  of  a  speech.  Similarly 
a  final  half-line  is  sometimes  printed  continuously  with  the 
last  full  line  of  a  speech.  Probably  these  features  derive 
from  the  copy,  and  Shakespeare  did  in  fact,  in  this  play, 
merge  his  numerous  halt-lines,  and  wrote  his  shorter 
speeches,  or  some  of  them,  continuously.  At  the  same  time, 
he  often  split  a  line,  to  indicate  a  long  pause,  and  this 
feature  also  the  compositor  reproduced.  The  interior  of 
the  longer  speeches  is  generally  free  from  mislineation. 
The  stage-directions  are  not  markedly  full,  but  there  are 
occasional  notes  for  action  or  for  the  grouping  and 
attitude  of  personages. 

There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  the  S.R.  entry  of  20 
May  1608  relates  to  the  play,  although  Blount  appears  to 
have  forgotten  it  when  the  entry  for  Fi  was  made.  This 
gives  a  limit  of  date.  But  there  is  reason  for  putting  Antony 
and  Cleopatra  earlier  than  1608.  In  1607  Samuel  Daniel 
issued  a  new  edition  of  his  Certain  Small  Workes,  and 
herein  made  considerable  changes  in  his  Cleopatra  of 
I594.1  These,  as  carefully  analysed  by  Case,  seem  to 
me  clearly  to  show  the  influence  of  Shakespeare's  play. 
There  are  some  parallels  of  idea  and  phrase.  Dialogue 
often  replaces  narrative  or  soliloquy.  Dircetus  and  Dio- 
medes  are  introduced  for  the  first  time.  Charmian,  Iras, 

Eliz.  Stagey  iii.  275. 


478  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

and  Callus  are  elaborated.  A  new  scene  relates,  through  the 
mouth  of  Dircetus,  events  leading  up  to  the  death  of 
Antony,  as  given  by  Shakespeare.  One  may  recall  a 

¥-obable  similar  use  by  Daniel  of  Richard  II  (cf.  supra). 
he  metrical  character  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra  forbids  us 
to  put  it  before  Macbeth  or  Lear.  But  it  may  have  been 
produced  early  in  1607,  and  of  this  there  is  confirmation 
in  Barnes's  Devil's  Charter  (1607),  2546-69,  where  Alex- 
ander Borgia  uses  asps,  which  he  calls  'Cleopatraes  birds', 
to  poison  two  boys.  Devil's  Charter  was  given  at  court  as 
early  as  2  February  1607,  but  thereafter  'reuewed,  cor- 
rected and  augmented'  for  the  reader,  and  registered  on 
October  I6,1  Parallels  to  iv.  14.  2  in  Chapman's  Bussy 
d'Ambois,  iii.  i.  23  and  to  i.  4.  20  in  the  anonymous 
Nobody  and  Somebody  ',  36,  may  be  left  out  of  account.  Pro- 
bably both  plays  are  earlier  than  Antony  and  Cleopatra  and 
the  ideas  are  in  both  cases  of  still  older  standing.2 

The  main  source  is  Plutarch's  life  of  Antony.  Possibly 
Appian's  Bella  Civilia  was  also  used;  and  Shakespeare 
may  have  read  Daniel's  Cleopatra  in  its  earlier  form,  or 
Lady  Pembroke's  Antonius  of  1  592,2  or  Samuel  Brandon's 
Virtuous  Ottawa  of  I598,4  but  hardly  Lord  Brooke's 
Antonie  and  Cleopatra,  which  he  burnt.5 

XXXI.   CORIOLANUS 

[Fi.  1623.]     [Catalogue]    The  Tragedy  of  Coriolanus. 

[Tragedies,  pp.  1-30,  sign,  a  a-c  c  3V.    Head-title']     The 

Tragedy  of  Coriolanus.  [Running-title]  The  Tragedie  of 

Coriolanus, 

[Acts  i,  sc.  i,  ii-v  marked.] 

Facsimile.  J.  D.  Wilson  (1928). 

Modern  Editions.  E.  K.  Chambers  (1898,  Warwick);  G.  Gordon' 

(1912,  0.17.?.)$  W.  J.  Craig  and  R.  H.  Case  (1922,  Arden)\ 

C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke  (1924,  Yale);  H.  H.  Furness  (1928,  New 


Dissertations.  J.  O.  HaJliwdl-Phillipps,  A  Hint  on  the  Date  of  Cor.  (i  874, 
1  SB*.  Stage,  iii.  214.  4  /$$/.  ft.  23$. 

*  Ibid.  iii.  253;  iv.  37.  *  Life  of  Sidney,  155. 

3  Ibid.  iii.  337. 


Chap.  IX.  CORIOLANUS  479 

N.S.S.  Trans.  367);  N.  Delius,  Sts  Cor.  in  seinem  Verhfltniss  zum  Corio- 
lanus  des  Plutarch  (1876,  J.  xi.  32;  AbL  i.  388);  R.  Buttner,  Z«  Car.  und 
seiner  Quelle(i<)Q$,  7.xli-45);  M.W.  MacCallum,  Sh.'sRoman  Plays  and 
their  Background (1910);  A.  C.  Bradley,  Cor.  (1912,  British  Academy). 

F  is  again  not  a  satisfactory  text,  less  on  account  of 
verbal  corruptions,  as  of  frequent  mislineations.  These 
are  very  similar  in  character  to  those  in  Antony  and 
Cleopatra^  and  probably  the  explanation  is  the  same  in 
both  cases.  The  stage-directions  to  Coriolanus  are  more 
elaborate  than  those  to  Antony  and  Cleopatra  and  give  many 
notes  for  position,  movement,  and  even  gesture  on  the 
stage.  They  suggest  the  author's  hand.  Wilson  also  finds 
Shakespearean  spelling. 

There  is  practically  no  concrete  evidence  as  to  date,  and 
the  attempts  to  find  some  have  been  far-fetched.  Mul- 
berries (iii.  2.  79)  were  known  to  Shakespeare r  before 
James  issued  instructions  to  encourage  the  growth  of 
them  on  19  January  i6c>9.2  There  was  a  dearth  of  corn 
(i,  i .  69)  in  1 608  and  1 609,  but  Plutarch  gives  the  Roman 
dearth.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  Volumnia  was 
inspired  by  Shakespeare's  mother,  who  was  buried  on 
9  September  1608.  The  character  of  Raleigh  has  been 
traced  in  that  of  Coriolanus,  and  the  struggles  of  James 
with  his  Parliaments  in  the  politics  of  the  play.  Both 
views  are  highly  speculative,  and  neither  would  yield  a 
precise  date.  Rather  more  plausible  is  the  suggestion  that 
'the  coal  of  fire  upon  the  ice*  (i.  i.  177)  derives  from 
the  great  frost  of  1607-8,  described  in  a  contemporary 
pamphlet.3  The  Thames  was  frozen  over,  for  the  first 
time  since  1564-5,  and  on  January  8  'pans  of  coals'  were 
burning  on  it.  Shakespeare  may,  of  course,  have  seen  the 
same  thing  before,  on  a  smaller  river.  There  may  be  an 
echo  of  ii.  2. 105  in  Jonson,  Epicoene,  v.  4. 227,  'you  haue 
lurch'd  your  friends  of  the  better  halfe  of  the  garland*. 
This  is  a  play  of  late  1 609  or  early  1 6 1  o.4  The  evidence  of 
style  and  metre  puts  Coriolanus  between  Antony  and  Cleo- 

«  Mid.  N.  Dr.  iii.  1. 170;  v.  1. 1495  Stowe,  Annaks,  891;  Birch,  James,  i. 

Fen.  &  Ad.  1103.  70,  71?  Lodge,  «i-  «4- 

»  Harleian  Misc.  ii.  218.  4  EKx.  Stage,  iu.  370. 
3  A.  Lang,  Social  England,  163$  cf. 


480  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

fatra  and  Pericles.    It  may  have  been  produced  early  in 
1608. 

The  source  of  the  play  was  Plutarch's  life  of  Coriolanus. 
Shakespeare  may  also  have  known  the  version  of  the  fable 
of  the  belly  and  the  members  (i.  i.  99)  in  Camden's 
Remaines  (i 605)  or  that  in  Livy,  ii.  32.  It  has  been  argued 
that  he  used  the  1612  edition  of  North's  Plutarch,  on  the 
ground  that  it  could  give  him  'unfortunate',  instead  of  the 
'unfortunately'  of  earlier  editions,  for  v.  3,  97.  But  the 
metre  would  in  any  case  dictate  'unfortunate',  and  that 
Coriolanus  should  be  as  late  as  1 6 1 2  is  inconceivable. 


XXXII.   TIMON  OF  ATHENS 

[F i.  1623.]  [Catalogue]  Timon  of  Athens.  \Tragedies, 
pp.  80-2,  8 1  &V-98+one  unnumbered  page,  sign.  G  gv- 
hh  6.  Head-title]  TheLife  of  Tymon  of  Athens.  [Running- 
title']  Timon  of  Athens. 
[Act  i,  sc.  i  marked.  'The  Actors  Names'  at  end.] 
Modern  Edition.  K.  Deighton(i905, 1929,  Arden}. 
Dissertation*.  N.  Delias,  Ueter  Shs  Tim.  (1867,  J.  ii.  335;  AbL  i.  46); 
B.Tschischwitz,T/«r.  Ein  kritischerVersuch  (1869,7.^.160);  A.  Miiller, 
fiber  die  Quellen  aus  denen  Sh.  Tim.  entnommen  hat  (i  873);  F.  G.  Fleay,  On 
the  Authorship  of  Tim.  (1874,  N.S.S.  Trans.  1 30,  242,  with  discussion  by 
F.  J.  Furnivall  and  B.  Nicholson;  Manual,  187);  G.  Kullmann,  Sks 
Antheil  an  dem  unter  seinem  Namen  veroffentlichten  Trauerspiel  Tim. 
(1882,  Arch.f.  Litteraturgeschichte,  xi);  W.  Wendtlandt,  8 As  Tim.  (1888, 
J.  xxiii.  109);  H.  Conrad,  SAs  und  Bulthaupts  Tim.  (i  894,  J.  xxix.  1 10); 
A.  C.  Bradley,  King  Lear  and  Tim.  (i  904,  Shn.  Tragedy,  443, 477);  W.  H. 
demons,  The  Sources  of  Tim.  (1904,  Princeton  Univ.  Bull,  xv);  J.  Q. 
Adams,  Tim.  and  the  Irregularities  in  Fi  (1908,  J.E.G.P.  vii.  53), 
The  Timon  Mays  (1910,  J.E.G.P.  ix.  506);  H.  Conrad,  Shs  Tim. 
Urheberschaft,  Abfassungszeit,  und  Enstehung  (1909,  Z.f.  Fergleichende 
Litteraturgeschichte,  N.F.  xvii.  337);  E.  H.  Wright,  The  Authorship  of 
Tim.  (1910);  J.  M.  Robertson,  Tim.  (1917,  8k.  and  Chapman,  121); 
W.  Wells,  Tim.  (1920, 12  N.Q.  vi.  266);  T.  M.  Parrott,  The  Problem  of 
Tim.  (1923,  Sh.Ass^\  H.  D.  Sykes,  The  Problem  of  Tim,  (1923, 13  N.Q. 
i.  83,  sqq;  Sidelights  on  Eliz.  Drama,  i);  D.  Wecker,  8k! s  Purpose  in  Tim. 
(1928,  PM.L^i.  xliii.  701). 

Timon  was  placed  in  F  between  Romeo  and  Juliet  and 
Julius  Caesar  to  fill  the  gap  left  (cf,  p.  442)  by  the  tern- 


Chap.  IX  TIMON  OF  ATHENS  481 

porary  withdrawal  of  Troilus  and  Cressida  and  does  not 
completely  do  so.  There  is  much  mislineation  in  the  text. 
Lines  are  irregularly  divided;  prose  speeches  are  printed 
as  verse,  and  verse  speeches  as  prose.  The  passages 
affected  are  mostly  short.  Many  verse  lines  are  split,  and 
the  splitting  is  often  not  explicable  as  due  to  considera- 
tions of  space  or  a  desire  to  indicate  major  pauses.  It  is 
very  likely  that  there  were  frequent  marginal  insertions 
in  the  copy.  There  are  some  elaborate  stage-directions  re- 
sembling those  in  Coriolanus.  Occasionally  (i.  2.  i  ;  iii.  1.  1, 
3.  1,4.  i  ;  v.  3.  i)a  touch  seems  superfluous  for  theatrical 
purposes,  but  in  the  main  there  is  nothing  which  an 
author,  wishing  to  give  careful  directions  for  the  ordering 
of  his  groups,  might  not  write.  Two  entries  (i.  i.  173; 
i.  2.  120),  in  anticipation  of  the  intervention  of  the 
entrants  in  the  dialogue,  show  practical  knowledge  of  the 
stage. 

The  literary  quality  of  the  play  is  somewhat  unusual.1 

There  is  much  fine  Shakespearean  poetry  and  the  general 

conception  is  clearly  Shakespeare's,  in  a  mood  of  highly 

strained  tragic  exaltation  resembling  that  of  Lear.   On 

the  other  hand,  there  are  dull  business  scenes  and  humour- 

less comic  scenes,  which  in  their  turn  recall  the  unin- 

terested manner  of  All's  Well.   And  there  are  several 

scenes  (i.  2;  iii.  i,  2,  3,  4.  1-79,  5;  iv.  2.  30-50;  iv.  3. 

1-47,  464-543;  v.  i.  i-i  1  8)  in  which  the  verse  at  least 

cannot  be  the  complete  and  jointed  work  of  Shakespeare. 

This  is  particularly  noticeable  in  the  longer  speeches. 

These  contain  Shakespearean  ideas,  sometimes  inchoate, 

and  scattered  Shakespearean  phrases.   But  they  are  not 

constructed    as    articulated    paragraphs    at    all.    They 

consist  of  j-uxtaposed  sentences,  now  in  blank  verse,  now 

in  rhyme,  now  in  wording  which  can  most  easily  be 

read  as  prose,   There  are  many  short  lines,  occasionally 

successive,  for  which  no  rhythmic  or  dramatic  justification 

is  apparent.    There  are  unmetrical  long  lines.    It  must  be 

added  that  the  structure  of  Timon  as  a  whole  is  incoherent. 

There  are  many  small  confusions  and  inconsistencies.  The 

'  Cf.  Sk.  a  Survey*  268. 


3x42.1  i 


482  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

dramatic  relation  of  some  of  the  characters  to  Timon  and 
his  tragedy  is  obscure.  Even  the  identity  of  some  of  the 
subordinate  personages  becomes  uncertain.  The  nomen- 
clature shows  much  orthographic  variation. 

These  features  have  naturally  evoked  theories,  whose 
chief  common  element  lies  in  the  assumption  of  a  second 
hand.  They  differ  as  to  the  extent  of  the  work  regarded 
as  un-Shakespearean,  and  as  to  whether  Shakespeare  was 
the  originator  or  a  reviser  of  the  play.  And  they  differ  as 
to  their  selection  of  a  second  hand.  Thus  a  draft  or  frag- 
mentary play  by  Shakespeare  is  held  to  have  been  re- 
handled  by  Heywood  (Verplanck),  Tourneur  (Fleay  in 
1874)5  Wilkins  (Fleay  in  1886),  Chapman  and  perhaps 
Field  (Parrott),  Middleton  (Wells).  And  again  Shake- 
speare is  held  to  have  rehandled  the  work  of  Wilkins 
(Delius),  Chapman  (Robertson),  Day  and  Middleton 
(Sykes).  Some  of  the  writers  are  discreet  enough  to  leave 
the  second  hand  anonymous.  None  of  the  theories  seem  to 
me  convincing  in  detail,  and  their  very  multiplicity  sug- 
gests that  their  exponents  are  on  the  wrong  tack.  More- 
over, most  of  these  are  compelled  to  admit  that  the 
revision,  by  whomsoever  accomplished,  was  itself  blunder- 
ing or  incomplete.  One  does  not  see  why  the  King's  men 
should  have  dealt  with  their  plays  in  this  way,  Fleay,  in- 
deed, was  driven  to  conjecture  that  the  revision  was 
undertaken,  not  for  theatrical  purposes,  but  to  enable 
Timon  to  be  printed  in  Fi .  I  do  not  doubt  that  it  was  left 
unfinished  by  Shakespeare,  and  I  believe  that  the  real 
solution  of  its  'problem',  indicated  long  ago  by  Ulrici  and 
others,  is  that  it  is  unfinished  still.  The  passages  of 
chaotic  verse,  in  particular,  look  very  much  like  rough 
notes,  hastily  jotted  down  to  be  worked  up  later.  I  do  not 
think  that  any  reputable  playwright,  such  as  the  King's 
men  would  have  employed,  wrote  like  this,  or  that  the 
'cutting'  contemplated  in  Parrott's  theory  could  have  pro- 
duced quite  this  result.  Other  Shakespearean  plays  were 
certainly  more  intelligently  cut.  Shakespeare  seems  to 
have  worked  chiefly  on  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  play, 
and  to  have  left  the  middle  acts  in  a  very  imperfect  state. 


Chap.  IX.  TIMON  OF  ATHENS  483 

Timon,  as  it  stands,  is  of  course  very  short,  and  it  may  be 
that  some  scenes  are  lacking  altogether.  One  may  reason- 
ably guess  that  ultimately  some  at  least  of  the  inconsis- 
tencies would  have  been  removed,  and  Alcibiades  and  the 
whores  more  definitely  linked  with  Timon 's  fortunes.  I  do 
not  suggest  that  Timon  throws  much  light  upon  Shake- 
speare's normal  methods  of  working.  It  is,  perhaps,  a  sub- 
jective view  that  he  dealt  with  it  under  conditions  of 
mental  and  perhaps  physical  stress,  which  led  to  a  break- 
down. In  any  case  he  seems  to  have  abandoned  it,  and 
never  to  have  taken  it  up  again. 

Timon  clearly  belongs  to  the  tragic  period,  but  there  is 
little  to  fix  its  exact  date.  No  Jacobean  representation  is 
recorded.  There  almost  certainly  was  none.  The  only 
possible  contemporary  allusion,  noted  by  Sykes,  is  in 
iv.  3  of  John  Day's  Humour  out  of  Breath^^j  of  I6O7-8,1 
where  one  is  as  mad  'as  the  lord  that  gave  all  to  his 
followers,  and  begged  more  for  himself.  But  this  is  far 
from  conclusive.  Jacobean  extravagance  could  easily  fur- 
nish'prototypes  from  real  life.  Bradley  argues,  on  the  basis 
of  metrical  tests  and  the  points  of  contact  between  Timon 
and  Lear,  for  placing  it  between  that  play  and  Macbeth. 
But  the  time-table  of  1605  and  1606  leaves  little  room 
for  it,  and  the  metrical  tests  cannot  be  applied  with  much 
confidence  to  a  play  of  which  no  part  may  be  quite  in  its 
final  form.  On  the  whole,  I  incline  to  put  the  work  on 
Timon  between  Coriolanus  and  Pericles  in  1608. 

The  story  of  Timon  is  told  briefly  in  Plutarch's  life  of 
Antony,  and  referred  to  again  in  that  of  Alcibiades,  and 
from  Plutarch  the  version  in  Painter's  Palace  of  Pleasure 
(i  566),  i.  28,  is  taken.  It  is  told  again,  with  greater  detail, 
in  Lucian's  Misanthropos,  which  was  the  main  source, 
direct  or  indirect,  of  the  anonymous  Timon  preserved  in 
Dyce  MS.  $2.2  Shakespeare  certainly  used  Plutarch,  but  he 
has  also  some  points,  which  are  in  Lucian  and  the  Dyce 
Timon,  but  not  in  Plutarch,  and  two,  the  faithful  steward 
and  the  mock  banquet,  which  are  in  the  Dyce  Timon,  but 
not  in  either  Lucian  or  Plutarch.  Deighton  cites  some 

'»  Etiz.  Stage,  iii.  287.  *  Md.  iv.  49. 

li  2 


484  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

passages,  in  which  Shakespeare  seems  to  follow  the  actual 
wording  of  Lucian  pretty  closely.  There  was  no  English 
translation  of  the  dialogue  available,  but  there  were 
Italian  ones,  and  a  French  one  by  Filbert  Bretin  (1582). 
The  Dyce  Timon  also  is  not  very  likely  to  have  been 
accessible  to  Shakespeare,  since  it  reads  like  an  academic 
play,  and  has  only  been  preserved  in  manuscript.  It  is 
not  an  improbable  conjecture  that  one  or  more  unknown 
versions  may  have  mediated  between  Lucian  and  both  the 
Dyce  Timon  and  Shakespeare's,  Possibly  the  stage-direc- 
tion (iv,  3.  399)  'Enter  the  Bandetti'  may  indicate  an 
Italian  source.  It  does  not  appear  to  be  the  Timone  of 
Matteo  Boiardo  or  that  of  Galeotto  del  Caretto,  both  of 
which  are  plays  of  the  late  fifteenth  century.  The  specta- 
cular Triumph  of  Time  in  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  Four 
Plays  in  One  is  also  based  on  the  Lucianic  dialogue,  but 
this  has  little  of  Shakespeare's  detail  and  its  date  is  un- 
certain.1 Most  students  of  the  Beaumont  and  Fletcher 
plays  make  it  later  than  Timon. 


XXXIIL  CYMBELINE 

[Fi.  1623.]  [Catalogue']  Cymbeline  King  of  Britaine. 
[Tragedies,  pp.  369-99,  sign,  z  z  3-b  b  b  6.   Head-title"] 
The  Tragedie  of  Cymbeline.   [Running-title]   The  Tra- 
gedie  [or  Tragedy]  of  Cymbeline. 
[Acts  and  sec  marked.] 
Reprint.  W.  J.  Cmig  (1883,  N.S.S.) 

Modern  Editions.  A.  J.  Wyatt  (1897,  Warwick)-,  C.  M.  Ingleby 
(1886)5  E.  Dowden,  1903,  Arden)\  H.  H.  Furness  (1913,  New 
Fariorum)\  S.  B.  Hemingway  (1924,  Tale). 

Dissertations.  K.  Schenkl  (1864,  Germania,  ix.  458);  B.  Leonhardt,  Gter 
die  Quellen  Cys  (1883,  Anglia,  vi.  i),  SMusswort  zu  Cy.  (1885,  Anglia, 
viii.  455);  S.  Levy,  Sine  neti  Quelle  zu  Sis  Cy.  (1884,  Anglia,  vii.  120), 
Noch  Einmaldie  Quellen  Cys  (1885,  Angli*,  viii,  197) ;  K.  Elge,  A  Letter 
to  C.  M.  Ingleby  on  Sh!s  Cy.  (i  885) 5  B.  ten  Brink,  Z*  Cy.  (i  886,  AngB*. 
ix.  267);  R.  W.  Boodle,  The  Original  of  Cy.  (1887,  7  N.Q.  iv.  404);  E. 
Yardley,  Si.  and Calderon  (1889,  7  N.Q.  viii.  26);  R.  Ohle,  SAs  Cy.  und 

1  EHz.Stage>  iii.  231. 


Chap.  IX  CYMBELINE  485 

seine  romanischen  Ferlaufer  (i 890) ;  H.  Reich,  Zu  Quelle  Jes  Cy.  (1905,  7. 
xli.  177);  F.Brie,  EineneueQueUexumfy.(i<)rt9J.'&v.  167);  J.dePerott, 
Der  Prinzenraut  aus  Rac&e  (1909,  J.  xlv.  228);  J.  M.  Robertson,  The 
Interlude  in  Cy.  (1917,  St.  and  Chapman,  218);  W.  W.  Lawrence,  The 
Wager  in  Cy.  (1920,  PM.Ljt.  xxxv.  391);  P.  Reyher,  The  Date  ofCy. 
(1925,  June,  Rev.  Anglo-Amtricaine^  L.  Kdlner,  Cy.  Sine  text-kritische 
Studie  (192-5,  Anglica>  ii.  1 50). 

The  F  text  is  regularly  lined,  but  leaves  some  room  for 
emendation.  The  stage-directions  are  as  a  rule  slighter 
than  in  Coriotanus. 

Forman  (App.  D)  saw  Cymbeline>  probably  between 
20  and  30  April  16 1 1,  and  in  any  case  before  his  death  on 
12  September  1611.  A  date  of  production  in  1609-10 
would  fit  the  evidence  of  metre  and  style,  which  links  the 
play  with  Winter's  Tale  and  Tempest.  The  source  of 
Cymbeline  also  yielded  a  passage  (iv.  4,  812)  in  Winter's 
Tale.  Reyher  finds  a  parallel  in  the  relations  of  Posthumus 
and  Imogen  to  those  which  brought  William  Seymour 
and  Arabella  Stuart  to  imprisonment  in  July  1610.  Ob- 
viously the  motive  in  Cymbeline  need  have  no  such  origin, 
and  in  so  far  as  there  is  an  analogy,  it  tells  in  favour  of  a 
date  before  July,  since  discretion  would  have  avoided  it 
just  afterwards.  The  plot  has  a  close  resemblance  to 
that  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher's  Philaster,  but  it  is  im- 
possible to  say  with  which  play  the  priority  rests,  Philaster 
cannot  be  shown  to  have  existed  before  8  October  1610, 
when  John  Davies  of  Hereford's  Scourge  of  Folly>  which 
contains  a  mention  of  it,  was  registered.1  The  theory  that 
Shakespeare  was  inspired  to  write  romantic  tragi-comedy 
by  the  example  of  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  can  hardly 
be  substantiated.  The  name  Belarius  recalls  the  Bellario 
of  Philaster>  but  Shakespeare  may  well  have  adapted  it 
from  Bellaria,  the  prototype  of  Hermione  in  Pandostoy  his 
source  for  Winter's  Tale^  and  if  so,  it  is  in  favour  of  his 
priority.  Fleay  thought  that  the  historical  scenes  (iii.  5; 
iv.  2-v.  3)  were  written  earlier  than  the  rest,  about  1606, 
because  Shakespeare  was  then  using  Holinshed,  because 
the  scenes  contain  some  parallels  to  Macbeth^  and  because 
he  thought  that  the- character  of  Cloten,  as  a  brave  prince 

x  Ibid.  iii.  222. 


486  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

and  counsellor  to  his  father,  was  inconsistent  with  that 
shown  in  the  more  romantic  episodes.  Ingleby  accepted 
the  same,  date  for  v.  2-5,  and  also  for  iii.  i,  and  for  ii.  2 
which  belongs  to  the  romantic  plot,  but  in  which  he 
also  found  Macbeth  parallels.  Oliphant1  has  withdrawn 
a  suggestion2  that  Beaumont  and  Massinger  succes- 
sively revised  the  play,  although  he  still  believes  in 
the  double  date.  Robertson  has  adumbrated  a  theory 
that  Chapman  had  a  share  in  recasting  a  pre-Shake- 
spearean  play,  perhaps  partly  by  Peele.  This  can  wait 
until  it  is  expounded.  I  see  no  grounds  for  a  double 
date.  Parallels  do  not  necessarily  mean  proximity  of  date. 
A  brave  prince  may  none  the  less  prove  a  boor  in  love.  The 
questioned  scenes  have  their  fair  share  of  the  light  and 
weak  endings  characteristic  of  Shakespeare's  latest  work. 
The  separate  writing  of  detached  scenes,  apart  from  the 
framework  to  which  they  belong,  is  a  priori  most  unlikely. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  vision  in  v.  4  is  generally,  and  I 
think  rightly,  regarded  as  a  spectacular  theatrical  inter- 
polation. Dowden  would  limit  the  extent  of  this  to  30-92, 
leaving  the  dumb-show,  with  97-126,  and  possibly  93-6 
as  genuine.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  the  whole  passage 
must  stand  or  fall  together.  And  with  it  must  of  course  go 
the  reference  to  the  vision  in  v.  5.  425—59.  The  song  in 
iv.  2,  258—81  has  also  been  questioned,  partly  because 
it  does  not  name  Fidele,  which  is  thought  inconsistent  with 

237- 

use  like  note  and  words 
Save  that  Euriphile  must  be  Fidele. 

No  doubt  songs  lend  themselves  to  interpolation,  but  this 
is  an  exquisite  one.  Staunton  distinguished  himself  by 
finding  the  last  couplet  of  each  stanza  inferior  to  the  rest. 
God  knows  why!  Disintegration  is  a  constant  itch  in 
some  minds.  Cymbeline  was  performed  at  court  in  1674 
(App.D). 

The  wager  theme  is  widespread  in  romantic  literature. 
Stray  coincidences  of  detail  are  insufficient  to  show  that 
Shakespeare  used  any  other  version  of  it  than  the  story  of 
*  B.  and?.  IOL  »  M.L.R.  iii.  349. 


Chap.  IX  CYMBELINE  487 

Bernabo  of  Genoa  in  Boccaccio's  Decameron,  ii.  9 .  They  are 
closest  in  a  story  called  Westward  for  Smelt$y  but  this, 
although  dated  by  Steevens  in  1603,  was  not  registered 
until  15  January  I62O.1  Boccaccio's  story  was  translated 
into  English  as  Frederick  of  Jennen,  andprinted  by  Jan 
van  Doesborgh  at  Antwerp  in  1518.  The  cave-life  of 
Belarius  and  Imogen  has  also,  of  course,  many  analogues. 
Shakespeare  is  less  likely  to  have  got  hints  from  a  German 
tale  of  Sneewitchen  or  a  second  novel  of  Boccaccio  (ii.  8) 
than  from  Fairfax's  translation  of  Tasso's  Gerusalemme 
Liber ata  in  Godfrey  of  Boulogne  (1600)  or  The  Mirrour  of 
Knighthood  (1601)  or  the  old  play  (1589)  of  The  Rare 
Triumphs  of  Love  and  Fortune,  which  has  the  name  Fidelia, 
as  well  as  that  used  in  Winter's  Tale  of  Hermione.2  The 
substitution  of  a  sleeping-draught  for  poison  might  come 
from  the  Golden  Ass  of  Apuleius  or  Richard  Johnson's 
Tom  of  Lincoln  or  elsewhere.  The  historical  material  is  in 
Holinshed,  and  here  too  most  of  the  other  names  could 
be  picked  up.  It  is  curious  that  Forman  calls  the  heroine 
Innogen  and  not  Imogen.  Shakespeare  had  an  Innogen  as 
a  mute  in  Much  Ado  about  Nothing.  Lawrence  says  that 
he  found  it  in  Locrine.*  As  a  matter  of  fact,  unless  he  saw 
that  in  manuscript  (cf,  p.  537),  he  could  only  have  found 
(1.  240)  lunoger,  since  the  printer  thought  that  he  knew 
more  Latin  than  the  writer.  Holinshed  has  Innogen,  which 
is  the  normal  form  of  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  who  makes 
her  wife  of  Brutus,  not  daughter  of  Cymbeline.  Are  we  to 
infer  that  the  name  Imogen  is  only  due  to  persistent 
minim  misprinting  in  Fi  ? 


XXXIV    THE  WINTER'S  TALE 

[Fi.  1623.]    [Catalogue.]  The  Winters  Tale.  [Comediesy 

pp.  277  [304  in  CWJ-3O3,  sign.  Aa-Cc2,  Head- and 

Running-titles]  The  Winters  Tale. 

[Acts  and  sec.  marked.  4The  Names  of  the  Actors'  at  end.] 

Facsimile*  ].  D.  Wilson  (1929). 

1  Var.  xiii,  2,  *  £#*:  Stage,  iv.  28.  3  Shakespeare's  Workshop,  44. 


488  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

Modern  Editions.  H.  H.  Furness  (1898,  New  Variorum}\  F.  W. 
Moorman  (1912,  Arden) ;  F.  E.  Pierce  (1918,  Tale}. 
Dissertations.  ].  Caro,  Die  historischen  Elemente  in  SAs  Tf.  und  W.T. 
(1879,  E.S.u,  141);  N. Delius, Greats PandostoundShs  W.T. (i88p,  J. 
xv.  22;  Abl.  ii.  68);  R.  Boyle,  Sis  W.T.  und  Tf.  (1885);  J.  Bolte,  Zur 
Schlusscene  des  W.T.  (i  891,  J.  xxvi.  87) ;  C.  D.  Mount,  Sir  Philip  Sidney 
and  Sh.  (1893,  8N.Q.  iii.  305);  K.  Fries,  Quellenstudien  zu  Sis  W.T. 
(1900,  Neue  Jahrbucherfur  Padagogik,  vi.  557);  P.  G.  Thomas,  Greene's 
Pandosto  (1907,  St.  Classics);  ].  ].  Jusserand,  W.T.  (1907,  1924,  School 
for  Ambassadors,  229);  S.  A.  Tannenbaum,  Textual  and  other  Notes  on 
W.T.  (1928,  S.P.  vii.  358). 

Herbert  (App.  D)  allowed  a  fresh  copy  for  the  play  on 
1 9  August  1 62  3,  because  'the  allowed  booke  was  missinge'. 
This  may  have  been  in  view  of  the  court  performance 
(tfiV/.)  on  1 8  January  1624,  As  there  had  been  a  similar 
performance  in  1618  and  probably  another  about  1619 
(ibid?),  we  cannot  suppose  that  the  old  book  perished  in  the 
Globe  fire  of  1 6 1 3.  It  may  have  been  mislaid  during  the 
printing  of  F  i .  But  it  is  more  likely  that  F  i  itself  rests  on 
the  fresh  copy.  The  text  is  remarkably  clean  typogra- 
phically, and  has  peculiarities  of  its  own  in  the  great  num- 
ber of  its  parentheses  and  in  the  occasional  (e.g.  ii,  3.  148 ; 
iv.  4.  592,  731)  meticulous  use  of  apostrophes  to  supply 
the  place  of  ellipsed  words.  A  blank  page  precedes  it, 
and  it  has  a  special  set  of  signatures.  It  seems  probable 
that  there  was  some  delay  in  obtaining  the  copy  and  that 
it  was  not  set-up^  until  some  progress  had  already  been 
made  with  the  Histories,  which  follow  it.1  R.  C,  Rhodes, 
Shakespeare's  First  Folio,  99,  regards  the  text  as  'assembled' 
(cf.  p.  153)  from  'parts',  and  no  doubt  Herbert's  entry 
gives  some  plausibility  to  this  view.  But  Rhodes  gives  a 
very  inexactand  incomplete  account  of  the  stage-directions. 
These  contain  little  more  than  entries  and  exits,  and  the 
latter  are  often  omitted.  The  entries  are  normally  given 
in  iy.  3  and  v.  2,  but  for  the  other  scenes  all  the  characters 
taking  part,  whether  they  are  present  from  the  beginning 
or  not,  are  grouped  in  an  initial  entry.  This  follows  the 
order  of  their  appearance,  and  in  ii.  i,  iii.  2,  v.  i,  3,  but 
not  elsewhere,  the  successively  appearing  characters  or 

1  Pollard,  F.g.  135;  E.  E.  Wffloughby  in  RJE.S.  iv.  326. 


Chap.  IX  THE  WINTER'S  TALE  489 

groups  of  characters  are  marked  off  by  colons  in  the 
stage-directions.  These  stage-directions  might  come  from 
a  plot.  The  case*differs  from  that  of  Two  Gentlemen  of 
Verona  in  that  some  of  the  entries  are  given  again  in  i.  2, 
ii.  3,  iii.  3,  and  iv.  4  at  their  proper  places  in  the  text,  and 
here  too  the  dancers  at  iv.  4.  165,  352,  who  are  not  in  the 
initial  stage-directions,  and  some  of  the  exits  are  noted. 
The  text  itself  would  generally  indicate  these, 

The  play  was  seen  by  Forman  on  15  May  1611  and 
given  at  court  on  5  November  1611  and  in  1612-13. 
Besides  the  later  Jacobean  court  performances  already 
cited,  there  was  a  Caroline  one  in  1634  (App.  D). 

The  style  and  metre  group  Winter's  Tale  with  Cymbeline 
and  Tempest^  and  it  may  reasonably  be  placed  between 
them.  A  date  early  in  1  6  1  1  is  suggested  by  the  probability 
that  the  bear  of  iii.  3  and  the  dance  of  satyrs  at  iv.  4.  352 
were  both  inspired  by  those  in  Jonson's  mask  of  Oberon 
on  i  January  I6H,1  The  bear  perhaps  came  originally 
from  Mucedorus.  I  once  suggested  that  this  also  followed 
Oberon.  But  this  was  an  error.2  The  bear  is  in  the  original 
edition  of  1598,  although  he  gets  an  additional  scene  in 
that  of  1610,  and  I  was  probably  wrong  (cf.  p.  175)  in 
thinking  that  the  Shrove  Sunday  court  performance,  for 
which  that  scene  was  written,  can  have  been  in  1611. 
The  reference  in  i.  2.  357  to  the  fate  of  those  who  'struck 
anointed  kings'  is  too  general  to  bear  pressing  as  an 
allusion  to  the  murder  of  Henri  IV  by  Ravaillac  on  14  May 
1  6  10.  Jonson  glances  at  Winter's  Tale  with  Tempest  in  his 
Bartholomew  Fair  of  1  614  and  at  its  sea-coast  for  Bohemia 
in  his  Conversations  of  1619  (App.  B,  no.  xxii). 

The  main  source  was  Greene's  novel  of  Pandosto  or  The 
Triumph  of  Time,  (1588)  reprinted  (1607)  as  Dorastus  and 
Fawnia.  Greene  himself  may  have  drawn,  directly  or 
indirectly,  upon  an  incident  of  the  fourteenth-century 
history  of  Poland  and  Bohemia,  as  well  as  upon  motives, 
such  as  the  oracle,  derived  from  Greek  erotic  romance. 
There  is  not  much  to  suggest  that  Shakespeare  used  a  deri- 
vative from  Greene  in  Francis  Sable's  Fisherman's  Tale 


1  Eli*.  Stage*  i"-  .185.  *  Md.  iv.  3$ 


49o  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

(1595).  He  took  some  names  from  Sidney's  Arcadia, 
Florizel  probably  from  Amadis  de  Gaule,  bk.  ix,  and  Auto- 
lycus  from  Odyssey,  xix.  394.  The  episode  of  the  living 
statue,  which  is  not  in  Greene,  may  have  been  suggested 
by  Lyly's  Woman  in  the  Moon  (159?)  or  Marston's  Pygma- 
lion** Image  (1598).  A  resemblance  of  the  return  of 
Hermione  to  that  of  Alcestis  is  surely  remote,  and  Shake- 
speare is  not  likely  to  have  known  the  fifteenth-century 
Dutch  play  ofEsmoreit,  as  thought  by  Fries.  'Recognition7 
themes  are  of  course  widespread  in  romantic  literature. 

XXXV.   THE  TEMPEST 

[Ft.  1623.]    {Catalogue}    The  Tempest  [Comedies,  pp.  i- 
1  9,  sign,  A-B4r.  Head-  and  Running-titles}  The  Tempest. 
[Acts  and  sec.  marked.    'The  Scene,  an  vn-inhabited  Island'  and 
'Names  of  the  Actors'  at  end.] 
Facsimile.  J.  D.  Wilson  (1928). 

Modern  Editions.  H.  H.  Furness  (i  892,  New  Variorum}\  F.  S.  Boas 
(1897,  Warwick};  M.  Luce  (1902,  1926,  Arden}\  G  B.  Tinker 
(1918,  Yah}\  W.  Vickery  (1911,  Rowfant  Club);  A.  T.  Quiller- 
Couch  and  J.  D.  Wilson  (1921,  C.U.P.). 

Dissertations.  E.  Malone,  An  Account  of  the  Incidents  from  which  the  Title 
and  Part  of  Sh.'s  Tp.  were  Derived,  and  its  True  Date  Ascertained^  808  ; 
Far.  xv.  377);  G.  Chalmers,  Another  Account  of  the  Incidents  from  which 
the  Title  and  Part  of  Sh's  Tp.were  Derived  (1815);  J.  Hunter,  A  Disquisi- 
tion on  the  Scene,  Origin,  Date,  etc.  ofSh.'s  Tp.  (1839)  ;  J.  Meissner,  Unter- 
suchungen  uber  Shs  Tp.  (1872);  A.  E.  Brae,  Prospers  Clothes-Line  (1874, 
Trans.RoyalSoc.ofLit.T$£.^M.lA&fai9I*F 

Nuova  Antolo&a,  ii)  ;  J.  Caro,  Die  historischen  Elemente  in  Bhs  Tp.  und  W.T. 
(1879,  E.$.  ii.  141);  R.  Boyle,  Sis  W.T.  *und  Tp.  (1885);  R.  W.  Boodle, 
The  Original  of  Cy.  and  possibly  ofTp.  (i  887,  7  N.Q.  iv.  404)  ;  R.  Garnett, 
The  Date  and  Occasion  of  Tp.  (1889,  Universal  "Review,  iii.  556); 
A.  E.  H.  Swaen,  Caliban  (1895,  E.S.  xxi.  326);  W.  W.  Newell,  The 


The  Probable  Sources  of  the  Plot  ofSh's  Tp.  (1905,  Publ.  of  Clark  Univ. 
Library,!.  209),  D  ie  MageKnen-  und  die  Stumf  abet  (i<)ii,J.xkni.  128); 
G.  Sarrazin,  Die  Vertreibung  des  Htrxogs  Prospero  (1906,  J.  xlii.  179); 
G.  Becker,  Zur  Quellenfrage  von  Shs  Tp.  (1907,  J.  adiii.  155);  S.  Lee, 
The  Call  of  the  West  (1907,  ScribneSs  Mag.),  The  American  Indian  in 
Elizabethan  England  ^1907,  Scnbner*sMag.  xlii.  313),  Caliban's  Pistes  to 
England  (1913,  Comhill  Mag.  338);  F.  Neri,  Scenari  delle  Maschere  in 


Chap.  IX  THE  TEMPEST  49i 

Arcadia  (191 3) ;  R.  M.  Kelsey,  Indian  Dances  In  Tf.  (1914,  J.E.G.P.  xiii. 
98);  C.  M.Gayley,  St.  and  the  Founders  of  Liberty  in  America  (1917); 
J.  M.  Robertson,  The  Masque  in  Tf.  (1917,  St.  and  Chapman,  210),  The 
Masque  in  Tp.  (1921,  Mar.  31,  T.L.S^  J.  D.  Rea,  A  Source  for  the  Storm 
in  Tp.  (1919,  Af.P.  xvii.  279),  A  Note  on  Tf.  (1920,  M.L.N.  xxxv.  313); 
A.  W.  Ward,  St.  and  the  Makers  of  Virginia  (1919,  Proc.  of  British  Academy, 
141);  W.  J.  Lawrence,  The  Masque  in  Tp.  (1920,  Fortnightly,  cxiii.  941), 
St.  avrebbe  tratto  il  soggetto  di  La  Tempesta  da  Scenari  Italiani  (1923, 
La  Lettered  3);  H.D.  Gray,  The  Sources  ofTp.(i<)2o,M.L.N.xxxv. 321), 
Some  Indications  that  Tp.  was  Revised  (i  92 1,  tf.P.  xviii.  1 29) ;  C.  Still,  8t.'s 
Mystery  Play  (1921);  A  Lefranc,  UOrigined' Ariel  (1921,  Cinquantenaire 
de  I'Ecole  Pratique  des  Hautes  £tudes) ;  E,  Law,  Si.'s  Tf.  as  Originally  Pro- 
duced at  Court  (1922,  St.  Assn.);  E.  K.  Chambers,  The  Integrity  of  Tp. 
(1925,  R.E.S.  i.  129);  M.  Longworth-Chambrun,  Influences  Franfaises 
dans  la  Tp.  de  Sh.  (1925,  Rev. de  Litt.  Comparte)-,  A.  Eichler,  Sis  Tp.  als 
Eofauffuhrung  (1925,  Die  Neueren  Sprachen,  Beiheft  6);  R.  R.  Cawley, 
8i.'s  Use  of  tie  Poyagers  (1926,  PM.L.A.  xli.  688). 

F  is  a  very  fair  text,  with  careful  punctuation.  The  stage- 
directions,  especially  for  the  spectacular  episodes,  are 
more  elaborate  than  in  any  other  play.  They  may  be,  in 
the  main,  the  author's. 

The  play  was  given  at  court  (App.  D)  on  i  November 
1 6 1 1  and  again  during  the  winter  of  1 6 1 2-1 3.  Malone's 
statement  that  it  'had  a  being  and  a  name  in  the  autumn  of 
1 6 1 1 '  probably  rests  only  on  a  knowledge  of  the  Novem- 
ber date.1  His  promise  to  show  in  a  revision  of  his  Chrono- 
logical Order  that  it  was  performed  before  the  middle  of 
1611  was  never  carried  out.2  That  it  cannot  have  been 
written  much  earlier  than  1 6 1 1  is  clear  from  the  use  made 
of  the  narratives  describing  the  wreck  of  Sir  George 
Somers  at  the  Bermudas  during  a  voyage  to  Virginia  on 
25  July  1609.  With  Somers  were,  among  others,  Sir 
Thomas  Gates,  William  Strachey,  Sylvester  Jourdan,  and 
Richard  Rich.  They  escaped  from  the  island  and  reached 
James  Town  in  Virginia  on  23  May  1610.  On  July  15 
Gates,  Jourdan,  and  Rich  started  for  England  with  a 
dispatch  of  July  7  from  the  Governor  of  Virginia,  Lord 
Delaware,  and  a  narrative  dated  July  15  by  Strachey. 
A  ballad  of  News  from  Virginia  (1610)  by  Rich  was 
registered  on  October  i.  But  the  first  full  description  of 

1  Var.  xv.  4*3.  *  7^.414. 


492  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

the  island  life  to  be  issued  seems  to  have  been  Jourdan's 
A  Discovery  of  the  Barmudas  (1610).  The  dedication  of 
this  is  dated  October  13.  It  was  followed  by  an  official 
publication  of  the  London  Council  of  Virginia,  A  True 
Declaration  of  the  Estate  of  the  Colonie  in  Virginia  (1610), 
registered  on  November  8.  Strachey's  narrative  was  cir- 
culated to  the  Council,  but  is  not  known  to  have  been 
printed  before  1625,  when  it  appeared  as  A  True  Repor- 
tory  of  the  Wracke  and  Redemption  of  Sir  Thomas  Gates, 
Knight  in  Samuel  Purchas's  Hakluytus  Posthumus  or  Purchas 
his  Pilgrimes,  iv.  1 734.  Strachey  himself  returned  to  Eng- 
land late  in  1611  and  was  in  the  Blackfriars  on  Decem- 
ber 1 3.  Shakespeare  doubtless  used  the  prints  of  1 6 1  o,  but 
numerous  verbal  parallels  make  it  clear  that  his  main 
authority  was  the  True  Repertory,  and  this  it  seems  that  he 
can  only  have  seen  in  manuscript.  Malone's  date  of  1 6 1 1 
for  Tempest  remains  reasonable.  It  has  been  suggested 
that  the  play  was  revised  in  1 6 1 2-1 3  and  the  mask  in  iv.  I 
inserted,  to  make  it  more  appropriate  to  the  celebrations 
attending  the  wedding  of  the  Elector  Palatine  and  the 
Princess  Elizabeth  on  14  February  1613;  and  the  mask 
has  been  claimed  by  Fleay  for  Beaumont  and  by  Robertson 
for  Chapman  or  Heywood.  Wilson  has  a  more  elaborate 
theory,  which  involves  an  early  rhymed  or  partly  rhymed 
play  by  Shakespeare,  two  distinct  recasts,  and  at  least  one 
and  possibly  two  abridgements,  as  well  as  the  introduction 
of  the  mask.  I  will  not  repeat  here  my  detailed  criticism 
of  these  views  in  R.E.S.  i.  129.  The  play  is  short,  but 
the  songs  and  dumb-shows  would  eke  it  out.  The  long 
passages  of  exposition,  which  Wilson  regards  as  replacing 
matter  originally  shown  in  action,  are  due  to  an  attempt, 
unusual  with  Shakespeare,  to  secure  unity  of  time.  The 
rest  of  the  supposed  evidence  for  recasting  and  abridge- 
ment consists  mainly  of  very  small  points,  such  as  incoher- 
encies  and  obscurities,  the  presence  of  mutes,  broken  lines, 
misdivided  lines,  accidental  rhymes,  a  scrap  of  doggerel, 
transitions  between  verse  and  prose,  for  most  of  which 
alternative  explanations  seem  to  me  more  plausible. 
At  two  places,  however,  i.  2.  298-304,  317  and  ii.  i.  297- 


Chap.  IX  THE  TEMPEST  493 

305,  it  is  just  possible  that  there  may  have  been  some 
theatrical  expansion  of  the  spectacular  and  musical 
elements.  Conceivably  the  song  of  Juno  and  Ceres  (iv.  i. 
1 06- 1 7)  in  the  mask  may  be  another  example;  the  rest  of 
the  mask  is,  I  think,  fully  Shakespearean. 

The  notion  of  an  early  date  for  Tempest  in  some  form 
has  been  encouraged  by  its  analogies  to  the  play  of  Die 
SchSne  Sidea,  which  forms  part  of  the  Of  us  Theatricum 
(1618)  of  Jacob  Ayrer  of  Nuremberg,  who  died  in  1605. 
Here,  too,  are  a  prince  and  magician,  with  a  familiar  spirit, 
a  fair  daughter,  and  an  enemy's  son,  whose  sword  is  held 
in  thrall  by  the  magician's  art,  who  must  bear  logs  for  the 
lady,  and  who  wins  release  through  her  love.  Use  of  a 
common  source  is  a  more  plausible  explanation  than 
borrowing  on  either  hand.  But  it  has  not  been  found. 
A  play  of  Celinde  and  Sedea  was  given  in  1604  and  1613 
by  English  actors  in  Germany,  but  Ayrer  has  no  Celinde.1 
William  Collins,  the  poet,  told  Thomas  Warton  that  he 
had  found  the  Tempest  story  in  the  Aurelio  and  Isabella  of 
Juan  de  Flores,  of  which  there  is  an  English  translation 
(1556),  but  it  is  not  there.2  Die  SchSne  Sidea  has 
no  storm  and  no  enchanted  island.  Some  analogues  to 
these  have,  been  found  in  various  novels  of  Spanish  and 
Italian  origin,  but  in  no  case  does  a  direct  relation  to 
Tempest  seem  likely,  -Probably  we  get  nearer  in  the 
scenari  for  commedie  delVarte  printed  by  Neri  from  Casana- 
tense  MS.  1212  at  Rome.  Of  these  there  are  four;  La 
Pazzia  di  Filandroy  Gran  Mago>  La  Nave,  Li  Tre  Satin. 
In  all  of  these  shipwrecked  crews  land  upon  an  island, 
and  there  are  love-intrigues  between  the  nobles  and  the 
native  girls,  and  comic  business  in  the  hunger  and  greed 
of  the  sailors.  These  are  complicated  by  the  action  of  a 
Mago  who  controls  the  island.  The  resemblances  to 
Tempest  are  closest  in  Li  Tre  Satiri>  where  the  foreigners 
are  taken  for  gods,  as  Trinculo  is  by  Caliban,  and  the 
Pantaloiie  and  Zanni  steal  the  Mago's  book,  as  Trinculo 
and  Stephano  plot  to  steal  Prospero's.  The  Mago  appears 
also  in  other  scenari  not  printed,  and  in  one  of  these, 

1  Eliz.  Stage,  ii.  284,  289.  a  Var.  xv.  2. 


494  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

PantaloncinO)  he  abandons  his  arts  at  the  end,  as  Prospero 
does.  The  scenari  are  from  the  second  of  two  manuscript 
volumes  dated  in  1618  and  1622  respectively.  They  were 
prepared  for  the  press  and  for  acting  by  Basilio  Locatelli, 
but  it  is  clear  from  the  preface  that  his  is  merely  a  rifad- 
mento.  How  old  the  scenari  themes  may  be,  one  can  hardly 
say,  but  Neri  points  to  a  very  similar  plot  of  a  shipwreck 
and  a  Mago  in  Bartolomeo  Rossi's  fully  written  pastoral 
comedy  oiFiamme/la  (1584).  Rossi  performed  in  Paris 
during  the  same  year.  He  is  not  known  to  have  come  to 
England.  And  of  course  we  cannot  assume  that  the 
scenari  were  used  for  performances  there,  although,  since 
writing  EKz.  Stage,  ii.  261-5,  I  have  found  a  trace  of 
the  presence  of  an  Italian  comedian,  possibly  Daniell  by 
name,  in  1 6 1  o, x  An  historical  basis  for  Prospero's  political 
fortunes  has  been  suggested  in  those  of  a  fourteenth- 
century  Lithuanian  Witold,  which  got  into  English 
chronicles,  and  with  those  of  a  fifteenth-century  Prospero 
Adorno,  whose  deposition  from  his  duchy  of  Genoa  is  told 
of  in  William  Thomas's  Histme  of  Italic  (1549,  1561). 
But  neither  parallel  is  at  all  close.  A  Ferdinand  II  suc- 
ceeded his  father  Alfonso  as  King  of  Naples  in  1495. 
Whatever  Shakespeare's  romantic  source,  if  any,  was,  he 
worked  into  it  the  details  of  the  Bermudas  adventure,  and 
he  has  probably  used  earlier  travel-books,  particularly 
Richard  Eden's  History  of  Travayle  (1577),  which  would 
have  given  him  Setebos,  as  the  name  of  a  Patagonian  god. 
Caliban  appears  to  be  derived  from  the  Gipsy  cauliban, 
'blackness'.  Ariel  is  a  Hebrew  name,  variously  used  in 
magical  writings  for  one  of  the  spirits  who  control  the 
elements  or  the  planets.  Gonzalo's  Utopian  disquisition 
(ii.  i.  143-68)  is  borrowed  from  the  essay  Of  the  Cani- 
baks  in  Florio's  Montaigne,  ch,  xxx.  A  ballad  of  The 
Inchanted  Island  is  (App.  F,  no.  xi,  </)  one  of  Collier's 
forgeries. 

«  &&&  1.133. 


Chap.  IX  495 

XXXVI.    HENRY  THE  EIGHTH 

[Fi.  1623.]    [Catalogue]   The  Life  of  King  Henry  the 
Eight.   [Histories,  pp.  205-32,  sign.  t3~X4v.  Head-title] 
The  Famous  History  of  the  Life  of  King  Henry  the  Eight, 
[Running-title]  The  Life  of  King  Henry  the  Eight 
[Acts  and  sec.  marked.] 

Modern  Editions.  D.  Nichol  Smith  (1899,  Warwick);  C.  K. 
Pooler  (1915,  Arden}\  J.  M.  Berdan  and  T.  Brooke  (1925,  Yale). 
Dissertations.  R.  Roderick,  On  the  Metre  of  Hen.  Fill  (c.  1756,  T. 
Edwards,  Canons  of  Criticism*  \  i874,tf.tf.$.2>ww.66*);  J.  Spedding,  On 
the  Several  Shares  of  Sh.  and  Fletcher  in  the  Play  of  Hen.  Fill  (1850, 
Gent.  Mag.  115;  1874,  N.S.S.  Trans.  I*);  S.  Hickson,  A  Confirmation  of 
Mr.  Spedding s  Paper  on  the  Authorship  of  Hen.  FIII(i  8  50,  i  N.Q.  ii.  198 ; 
1 %H,N.S.S.  Trans.  1 8*) ;  N.V&\K,FletchersangeUicheBetheiligungan  Shs 
Hen.  FIII(i  879,  J.  xiv.  1 80 ;  Abl.  ii.  3 5) ;  W.  Zeitiin,  SAs  Hen.  VIII und 
Rowleys  When  You  SeeMe,  Tou  Knoz0Mt(iWi,4nglia9iv.j$)i  R. Boyle, 
Beaumont>  Fletcher,  and  Massinger  (1887,  E.S.  x.  393),  Hen.  Fill,  An 
Investigation  into  the  Origin  and  Authorship  of  the  Play  (i  88  5,  #.&£.  Trans. 
443);  F.  G.  Fleay,  Mr.Boyle's  Theory  as  to  Hen.  PHI  (iW$,  Ath.i.  355); 
E.H.COliphant,  The  WorksofB.andF.(ityi9E.S.™.  326),  Hen.FIII 
(1927,  B.F.  302) ;  A.  H.  Thorndike,  Hen.  Fill  (1901,  Influence  ofB.  and 
F.  on  Sh.  35);  H.Conrad,  Hen.  Fill.  Fletchers  Werk>  uberarbeitet  von 
Sh.  (1918,  E.S.  lii.  204);  H.  D.  Sykes,  KingHen.  PIII(i<)i<)9  Sidelights 
on  Sh.  1 8);  K.  Ege,  Shs  Anteilan  Hen.  7IH(i<)229  J.  Iviii.  99);  M.  H, 
Nicokon,  The  Authorship  of  Hen.  Fill  (1922,  PM.LJ[.  xxxvii.  484); 
B.  Maxwell,  Fletcher  and  Hen.  Fill  (1923,  Manly  Studies,  104),  Review 
of  Sykes  (1926,  M.P.  xxiii.  365). 

The  text  is  a  good  one,  with  unusually  elaborate  stage- 
directions  for  the  spectacular  episodes.  A  clear  date  is 
given  by  the  notices  of  the  Globe  fire  of  29  June  1613 
during  a  performance  of  the  play.1  It  is  called  by  Howes 
and  Lorkin  'the  play  of  Henry  the  Eighth'.  Wotton  gives 
an  alternative  title  All  is  True,  which  is  echoed  by  three 
references  to  truth  in  the  prologue.  But  he  also  says  that 
'some  principal  pieces  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VHP  were 
represented,  and  specifies  the  mask  scene,  from  the  dis- 
charge of  chambers  in  which  (i.  4.  49)  the  fire  arose.  And 
he  calls  the  play  a  'new'  one.  There  is  no  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  it  differed  in  any  way  from  the  extant  version, 

1  App.D;  EUz.  Stage,  ii.  419. 


496  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

merely  because  a  ballad  mentions  'the  Foole'  among  the 
actors  in  the  house.  He  was  a  familiar  member  of  the 
company,  even  if  he  had  no  part  in  Henry  VIII.  Nor  need 
the  references  in  the  prologue  to  'the  first  and  happiest 
hearers  of  the  town'  and  to  a  shilling  admission  fee  point  to 
a  performance  at  the  Blackfriars.  There  were  shilling 
seats  in  the  public  theatres  during  the  seventeenth  century, 
and  probably  increased  prices  for  new  plays.1 

Modern  scholarship  has  generally  adopted  the  view  of 
•  Spedding  that  there  are  two  hands  in  Henry  VIII,  of  which 
the  first  only  wrote  i.  i,  2;  ii.  3,  4;  iii.  2.  1-203;  v.  i. 
Spedding  took  the  first  hand  to  be  Shakespeare's  and  the 
second  Fletcher's ;  and  I  see  no  reason  to  dissent.  A  general 
impression  of  stylistic  difference  is  confirmed  by  the  tests 
of  double  endings,  overflows,  and  speech-endings,  and, 
for  what  it  is  worth,  by  Thorndike's  test  of  the  variant  uses 
of  'cm  and  them,  although  the  possible  intervention  of 
printers  must  be  borne  in  mind  here.  Conrad  has  shown 
that  the  proportion  of  parallels  to  Shakespeare's  diction 
elsewhere  is  considerable  in  the  scenes  ascribed  to  him, 
and  slight  elsewhere.  Boyle  and  Sykes  have  attempted  to 
substitute  Massinger  for  Shakespeare,  again  mainly  on  the 
basis  of  parallels,  but  those  to  Massinger  certainly  do  not 
outweigh  the  Shakespearean  ones.  Moreover,  Massinger 
is  full  of  Shakespearean  echoes.  Maxwell  points  out  that 
he  has  as  many  to  Hamlet,  Othello,  and  Corivlanus  as  to 
Henry  VIII,  and  also,  which  is  significant,  that  such  echoes 
are  most  frequent  in  the  plays  which  he  wrote  after  the 
appearance  of  F  i  *  I  doubt  whether  Boyle  and  Sykes  are  on 
any  stronger  ground  in  also  finding  sections  of  Massinger 
in  the  non-Shakespearean  scenes.  The  occasional  dis- 
cernment of  him  by  Oliphant  as  touching-up  both  parts 
here  and  there  seems  to  me  quite  subjective.  It  is,  I  think, 
easier  to  make  out  a  case  against  Fletcher  than  against 
Shakespeare.  Maxwell  shows  that  the  second  hand  keeps 
closer  to  his  sources,  and  uses  more  overflows,  parentheses, 
and  sententious  maxims,  and  fewer  repetitions  of  words 
than  are  usual  in  Fletcher's  work,  and  concludes  that,  if  he 

1  Eliz.  Stagey  ii.  532. 


Chap.  IX  HENRY  THE  EIGHTH  497 

was  the  second  hand,  'either  he  was  revising  another's 
work,  or  the  peculiarities  of  his  style  and  method  were 
modified  by  a  collaborator'.    I  should  agree  that  Henry 
VIII  is  not  very  characteristic  Fletcher,  and  should  add 
that  it  is  not  very  characteristic  Shakespeare-either.  Shake- 
speare must  have  been  writing  in  a  tired  vein  and  with 
some  loss  of  concentration.    Fletcher  is  clearest  in  the 
lighter  scenes,  i.  3  and  v,  4,  and  here  the  superabundance 
of  double  endings,  often  with  stressed  final  syllables,  and 
the  linking  of  contiguous  or  nearly  contiguous  words  by 
cheap  alliteration  must  be  his.  I  think  that  the  revels  scene 
(i.  4),  the  comparatively  colourless  state  scenes  (ii.  2 ;  iv.  i ; 
v.  2,  3),  the  final  rhetoric  (v.  5)  and  the  pathetic  scenes 
(ii.  i ;  iii.  i ;  iii.  2.  2O3~end;  iv.  2)  may  be  his  also.  There 
is  some  very  good  writing  for  him  in  the  pathetic  scenes, 
and  the  play  as  a  whole  is  a  little  out  of  his  ordinary  line. 
He  may  well  have  been  working  under  the  influence  of 
Shakespeare.    Some  kind  of  collaboration,  even  if  Shake- 
speare was  at  a  distance,  is  more  plausible  than  revision, 
for  which  there  is  no  clear  evidence.  The  other  indications 
of  collaboration  between  Shakespeare  and  Fletcher  about 
1613,    in    T.N.K.  and  perhaps  the  lost   Cardenio  (cf. 
p.  539),  cannot  be  left  altogether  out  of  account.  Shake- 
speare starts  most  of  the  themes.    He  deals  pretty  fully 
in  i.  i,  2  with  Wolsey 's  greatness  and  the  ruin  of  his 
opponent  Buckingham.    He  introduces  Anne  (ii.  3),    He 
does  the  trial  of  Katharine,  evidently  leaving  a  gap,  as  there 
has  been  nothing  to  lead  up  to  it.  He  begins  the  fall  of 
Wolsey  and  leaves  its  ending  to  Fletcher.  He  introduces 
Cranmer,  Cromwell,  and  Gardiner.  He  does  the  birth  of 
Elizabeth.  It  is  an  epic,  rather  than  a  tragic  scheme.  Per- 
haps Fletcher  upset  the  intended  balance,  by  stressing 
the  pathos  of  Katharine  and  Wolsey.    Obviously  in  a 
Jacobean  play  there  must  be  something  of  James,  to 
follow  Elizabeth.    The  reversion  to  the  epic  chronicle  at 
the  very  end  of  Shakespeare's  career  is  odd.  I  have  some- 
times thought  that  an  earlier  plot  may  have  been  adapted. 
Sussex's  men  played  a  Buckingham  in  i593~4>  although, 
if  this  is  one  of  Henslowe's  loose  titles  for  a  Shakespearean 

3142.1  K  k 


498  PLAYS  OF  THE  FIRST  FOLIO  Chap.  IX 

play,  it  is  perhaps  more  likely  to  be  Richard  III  than  an 
early  Henry  VIIL  There  is  no  early  language,  of  course, 
in  Henry  VIIL  Downes  say*  that  Lowin  played  Henry, 
and  was  instructed  in  the  part  by  Shakespeare  himself.1 
According  to  the  comedy  of  Knavery  in  All  Trades  (i  664), 
Taylor  and  Pollard  acted  with  Lowin  in  the  play,2  They 
were  not  King's  men  in  Shakespeare's  lifetime,  but  there 
was  a  revival  (App.  D)  in  1628.  The  historical  incidents 
are  pieced  together  from  Holinshed  and  Foxe's  Book  of 
Martyrs.  Possibly  the  writers  had  also  Samuel  Rowley's 
When  Tou  See  Me,  Tou  Know  Me  (i  605)  before  them.3  A 
reprint  of  1613  may  have  been  due  to  the  production  of 
Henry  Fill.  We  may  fancy,  if  we  like,  that  it  was  the 
'merry  bawdy  play'  of  the  prologue. 

1  EUz.  Stage,  ii.  329.  *  H.P.  ii,  295.  3  £//«.  Stage,  iii.  472. 


CHAPTERX 
PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO 

[Bibliographical  Note.  Pericles,  but  not  as  a  rule  Two  Noble  Kinsmen, 
forms  a  part  of  most  recent  editions  of  Shakespeare.  The  most  convenient 
collection  of  other  plays  ascribed  to  him  in  the  Third  Folio  or  elsewhere  is 
C  T.  Tucker  Brooke,  The  Shakespeare  Apocrypha  (1908),  Others  are  by 
N.  DeKus  (1854-74);  K.  Warnke  and  L.  Proescholdt  (1883-8);  A.  F. 
Hopkinson  (1891-1914).  A  fuller  and  more  detailed  list  is  in  Ettz, 
Stage,  iii.  204.  Dissertations  are  R.  Sachs,  Die  Sh.  zugeschriebenen  zwetfel- 
haften  Stiicke  (1892,  J.  xrvii.  135;  A.  F.  Hopkinson,  Essays  on  Sh.'s 
Douitful  Plays  (1900).] 

I.  SIR  THOMAS  MORE 

[Bibliographical  Note.  The  play  is  preserved  in  HarL  MS.  7368.  It  must 
have  passed  into  the  Harleian  library  from  that  of  John  Murray,  who  lent 
it  to  Thomas  Hearne  (Collections,  ix.  393)  in  1727.  Editions  were 
published  by  A.  Dyce  (1844,  Sh.  Soc.),  A.  F.  Hopkinson  (1902),  and 
C.  F.  Tucker  Brooke  (1908,  Sh.  Apocrypha),  and  a  photographic  fac- 
simile by  J.  S.  Farmer  (1910,  T.F.T.).  The  foundation  of  modern  study 
is  W.  W.  Greg's  type-facsimile  edition  (1911,  M.S.R.).  Shakespeare's 
participation  in  the  pky  was  first  suggested  by  R.  Simpson,  Are  there  any 
extant  MSS.  in  S&.'s  Handwriting  (i  871,  4  N.Q.  viii.  i)  and  J.  Spedding, 
Sh.'s  Handwriting  (1872, 4  N.Q.  x.  227),  On  a  Question  concerning  a  Sup- 
pose J  Specimen  of  Sh.'s  Handwriting  (i  879,  Reviews  and  Discussions}.  The 
theory  was  revived  with  great  pakeographical  learning  by  Sir  E.  M. 
Thompson,  Sh.9s  Handwriting  (igi6),B&d$\ippoitedinSA.'s  Hand  in  the 
Play  ofS.TM.  (1923),  with  contributions  by  A.  W.Pollard,  W.  W.  Greg, 
E.  M.  Thompson,  J.  D.  Wilson, and  R,  W.  Chambers.  Much  controversy 


in  E/iz.  Stage,  iv.  32.  The  palaeographical  issue  has  been  summed  up  by 
W.  W.  Greg  in  SA.'s  Hand  Once  More  (1927,  Nov.  24,  Dec.  i,  T.L.S.). 
Other  discussions  are:  B.  Nicholson,  The  Plays  ofS.TM.  and  Ham.  (i  884, 
6  N.Q.  x.  423);  A.  Hall,  Sh!s  Handwriting ^1899);  C.  R.  BaskerviU,  Some 
Parallels  to  Bartholomew  Fair  (1908,  M.P.  vi.  109);  W.  W.  Greg,  Auto- 
graph Plays  fy  J.  Munday  (1913,  M.L.R.  viii.  89),  T.  Goofal  in  S.TM. 
(1929,  PM.L.A.  xliv.  633);  L.  L.  SchGcking,  Das  Datum  des  pseudo-Sh. 
S.TM.  (1913,  E.S.  xlvi.  228),  Sh.  and  S.TM.  (1925,  R.E.S.  i.  40); 
P,  Simpson,  The  Play  ofS.TM.  and  Sh.'s  Hand  in  It  (1917,  3  Library, 
viii.  79),  A.  Green,  The  Apocryphal  S.TM.  and  the  Sh.  Ho/ograpA  (1918, 
^».7.?&/<7/^,x^ 

xviii.  226);  W.  H.  Stevenson,  W.V  Schoolmaster  and  Handwriting  (1920, 
Jan.  8,  T.L.S.);  M.  St.  C.  Byrne,  A. Munday  and  his  Books  (1921, 4  Library, 

Kk2 


Soo  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap  X 

i.  225);  G.  G.  Greenwood,  The  Sh.  Signatures  and  S.TM.  (1924)- 
B.  A.  P  '.van  Dam,  ,The  Textof  Sh.'s  Ham.  (I924),  369;  S.  A.  Tannenbaum 
Sh.  s  Unquestioned  Autographs  and  the  Addition  to  S.TM.  (192  5,  S  P  xxii 
I33S  fnUau.  »79);  The  Book  of  S.TM.  (1927,  p.p.,  reviewed  by 
R.  B.  McKerrow  in  R.E.S.  iv.  237  and  W.  W.  Greg  in  4  Library,  is.  202), 
More  About  the  Booke  of  S.TM.  (1928,  PM.lJl.  ifin.  767);  E.  Severs, 
ff.r.M.  (1925,  Anglica,  ii.  173);  G.  B.  Harrison,  The  Date  of  S.TM 
(1925,  R.E.S.  i.  337);  A.  W.  Pollard,  Ferse  Tests  and  the  Date  of  S.TM. 
(1925,  R.E.S.  i.  441);  A.  Acheson,  SA.,  Chapman  and  S.TM.  (1926,  Rev 
Anglo-AmMcaine,  iii.  428,  514);  T.  W.  Baldwin,  The  Organisation  and 
^sonnet  of  the  S  An.  Company  (1927),  1315  E.  M.  Albright,  Dramatic 
Publication  in  England  (1927),  128;  W.  Marschall,  Das  S.TM.  Mann- 
stnpt  unddie  englische  Comntedia  dell'  Arte  (1928,  Anglia,  Iii.  103);  S  R 
G^^Robert  Wilson  andS.TM.(i<)z*,N.Q.<-&v.  237,  2595^.237')! 
There  has  also  been  much  correspondence,  to  which  many  of  the  above 
writers,  with  M.  A.  Bayfield,  J.  A.  Fort,  and  W.  J.  Lawrence,  have  contri- 
buted, in  T.L.8.  (1919,  Apr.  24-June  19,  Nov.  6,  Dec.  18;  1920,  May 
27-July  i,  Aug.  12,  19;  1921,  June  30,  Aug.  4,  18;  1922,  Nov.  23,  30; 
1923,  Oct.  i8-Dec.  20;  1924,  Aug.  24-Nov.  6;  1925,  Jan.  15-29,  Au*. 
27-Nov.  12).  7       e 

Much  of  the  discussion  on  S.TM.  covers  Shakespeare's  handwriting  as 
shown  in  his  signatures.  Other  dissertations  are:  F.  Madden,  Observa- 
tions on  an  Autograph  of  Sh.  (1838,  from  Arch,  xxvii.  113);  W.  D. 
Macray  Annals  of  the  Bodleian  (1868,  1890),  379;  A.  P.  Paton,  North's 
Plutarch:  Notes,  as  to  a  Copy  Supposed  to  have  been  Sh.'s  (1871);  W.  W. 
Skeat,  ,U.  sP/utarcA(iS75\vii  F.  A.  Leo,  Sh.'sOvidintheBodleianM^ 
J.  wi.  367)5  J.  F.  Nisbet,  The  Insanity  of  Genius  (i  89  1);  F.  J.  Furnivall,  On 
Sh.  s  Signatures'^;  S.Lec,SA.'sHandwriting(i  899);  E.M.Thompson, 
An  Analyst,  of  Sh.'s  Signatures  (1917,  I026,  Sh.'s  England,  i.  299),  Two 
Pretended  Autographs  of  Sh.  (1917,  3  Library,  viii.  193);  F.  Madan,  A  Sup- 
posed  SA.  Autograph  (1918,  3  Library,  ix.  97);  G.  G.  Greenwood,  SA.'t 
Handzoriting(i<)zc>),  Sh.'s  Handwriting  and  the  Northumberland  Manuscript 
(1925)5  R.  W.  Leftwich,  Sh.'s  Handwriting  and  Other  Papers  (1921);  W 
Thompson,  Sh.'s  Handwriting  (1925,  Quarterly,  ccxliii.  209);  C.  L.  Dana, 
The  Handwriting  in  Nervous  Diseases,  with  Special  Reference  to  the  Signa- 
tures of  William  Sh  (1925,  Essays  for  M.  Prince);  S.  A.  Tannenbaum, 
"  S&-8i>'t  925.  S.P.  xxii.  w\ANew  Study  of 

' 


.  . 

^•^"^i'  S'P-  XDU-  "7)5  tnH**  i»Sh.'s  Penmanship  (1927); 
G.  C.  Taylor,  The  Date  of  Edward  Capell's  Notes  and  Farious  Readings 
(1929,  R.E.S.  v.  317).  I  give  facsimiles  (Pkte  XII)  of  the  accepted  signa- 
tures. Others  are  in  the  books  of  E.  M.  Thompson  and  S.  A.  Tannenbaum 
*or  general  treatises  on  Elizabethan  handwriting,  cf.  p.  168.] 


THE  title  of  the  play  is  given  on  a  vellum  wrapper,  in- 
scribed 'The  Booke  of  Sir  Thomas  Moore'.  It  has  no 
divisions,  but  the  original  text,  in  so  far  as  it  is  now  pre- 


Chap.  X  SIR  THOMAS  MORE  501 

served,  makes  seventeen  scenes,  which  can  be  grouped 
into  three  sections,  dealing  respectively  with  the  Rise, 
Greatness,  and  Fall  of  More.  The  first  section  (Sec.  i-vii) 
was  devoted,  except  for  the  description  of  an  isolated 
early  prank  of  More  in  Sc.  ii,  to  the  events  of  '111  May- 
Day',  1517.  More  was  represented  as  taking  a  leading 
part  (Sc.  yi)  in  quelling  the  riot  against  the  Lombard  and 
French  aliens  in  London.  The  second  section  (Sec.  viii  and 
ix)  was  mainly  occupied  with  a  visit  of  Erasmus  to  More, 
and  with  a  play,  in  which  More  took  an  impromptu  part. 
The  third  gave  the  closing  episodes  of  his  life,  from  his 
resignation  of  the  Chancellorship  (Sc.  x)  to  his  execution 
(Sc.  xvii).  The  manuscript  has  undergone  alteration. 
There  are  two  lacunae  in  the  original  text.  Probably  one 
leaf,  containing  the  end  of  Sc.  v  and  beginning  of  Sc.  vi, 
has 'been  removed,  and  the  whole  of  Sc.  iv  and  beginning  of 
Sc.  v  on  the  verso  of  the  preceding  leaf,  with  a  few  lines  of 
'Sc.  vi  on  the  following  leaf,  have  been  marked  for  deletion. 
Into  this  lacuna  have  been  inserted  four  leaves,  of  which 
the  first  contains  a  passage  (Addition  I)  clearly  intended 
for  the  third  section  and  here  misplaced,  and  the  others 
(Addition  II)  contain  (a)  a  revised  Sc.  iv,  (b)  a  new  scene  to 
replace  Sc.  v,  (c)  a  new  beginning  for  Sc.  vi.  Probably  two 
leaves,  containing  the  central  part  of  Sc.  viii,  have  also  been 
removed,  and  the  beginning  and  end  of  that  scene  on  the 
preceding  and  following  leaves  marked  for  deletion.  This 
second  lacuna  has  been  filled  by  two  inserted  leaves 
(Addition  IV)  containing  a  revised  Sc.  viii.  Further,  a 
slip  (Addition  III)  bearing  a  single  speech,  probably 
intended  as  an  introduction  to  this  scene,  has  been  pasted 
over  part  of  the  deleted  matter  on  the  leaf  preceding  the 
lacuna .  Some  additions  have  also  been  made  to  the  later 
scenes..  Another  slip  (Addition  V),  pasted  over  deleted 
matter  on  the  leaf  following  the  second  lacuna,  bears  an 
introductory  speech  to  Sc.  ix,,  and  this  introduction  has 
itself  been  expanded  by  lines  written  partly  on  the  slip  and 
partly  on  the  leaf  which  holds  it.  A  leaf  (Addition  VI)  has 
been  inserted  before  that  containing  the  ciriginal  end  of 
Sc.  ix,  and  contains  a  new  episode  to  be  appended  to  that 


5o2  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap.  X 

scene.  And  at  the  end  of  this  inserted  leaf  is  found  a  draft 
for  the  expanding  lines  in  Addition  V.  Finally,  a  reference 
sign  against  a  speech  by  More  marked  for  deletion  in  Sc. 
xiii  indicates  that  the  misplaced  Addition  I  was  meant  to 
come  in  here. 

The  original  matter  is  written  throughout  in  a  single 
hand.  The  Additions  are  in  five  other  hands,  known  as 
A,  B,  C,  D,  and  E.  The  contributions  of  A,  D,  and  E  are 
confined  to  single  scenes.  A  wrote  Addition  I,  D  wrote 
Addition  II(c),  the  revised  part  of  Sc.  vi,  in  which  More's 
oratory  quells  the  riot.  E  wrote  the  last  3 1  lines  of  Addi- 
tion IV.  Hands  B  and  C  range  more  widely.  B  wrote 
Additions  II(a)  and  VI.  He  also  added  a  few  speeches  for 
the  Clown  in  the  margins  of  the  latter  and  original  part  of 
Sc.  vi  and  of  Sc.  vii.  And  he  is  possibly  responsible  for  the 
marginal  words  'This  must  be  newe  written',  at  the  open- 
ing of  the  deleted  Sc.  viii,  C  wrote  Additions  II(b),  III, 
IV  (except  E's  31  lines),  and  V.  He  also  made  many 
alterations  in  the  speech-prefixes  and  a  few  in  the  text  of 
D's  contribution,  similarly  but  more  slightly  corrected 
B's  II(a),  added  stage-directions  to  his  VI,  and  revised 
some  of  the  directions  in  those  parts  of  the  original  text 
which  were  to  be  retained,  partly  to  adapt  them  to  the 
Additions,  and  partly,  it  would  seem,  to  get  important 
directions  in  the  left  margin.1  Dr.  Greg  reasonably  con- 
jectures that  B  and  C  shared  the  general  responsibility  for 
the  revision  of  the  play.  Moreover,  while  it  is  reasonable  to 
suppose  that  A,  B,  D,  and  E  were  themselves  the  authors 
of  what  they  wrote,  C  was  clearly  copying  in  part  of  V  the 
draft  by  B  at  the  end  of  VI,  and  it  is  therefore  possible  that 
he  was  nothing  but  a  copyist  elsewhere.  In  fact,  his  ser- 
vices seem  to  be  those  of  a  book-keeper;  and  of  this  there 
is  confirmation  in  the  facts  that  his  hand  reappears  on  the 
wrappers,  both  of  Sir  Thomas  More  itself  and  of  John  a 
Kent,  for  which  the  same  piece  of  vellum  was  used,  in 
some  stage-directions  added  to  John  a  Kent,  and  in  the 
'plots'  of  2  Seven  Deadly  Sins  and  2  Fortune's  Tennis.* 

The  play  has  been  submitted  for  censorship  to  Edmund 

1  Cf.  p.  xai.  *  Cf.  pp.  109,  124. 


Chap.  X  SIR  THOMAS  MORE  503 

Tilney,  as  Master  of  the  Revels.    He  has  written  no 
'allowance*  upon  it,  but  he  has  made  some  'reformations' 
and  given  instructions  for  others.  His  main  attention  was 
directed  to  the  '111  May-Day'  scenes  in  the  first  section. 
Here,  in  Sec.  i  and  iii  he  has  marked  long  passages  for 
deletion,  put  crosses  against  individual  lines,  and  altered 
several  words,  apparently  with  the  idea  of  suggesting  that 
the  aliens  concerned  were  only  Lombards  and  not  of  any 
other  nation.  Even  the  non-committal  word  'straunger'  has 
to  go.   Against  a  passage  referring  to  'daungerous  times' 
and  'the  displeased  commons  of  the  Cittie',  he  has  written 
'Mend  y48'.    With  Sc.  iii  the  'reformations'  stop,  and 
although  Tilney's  ink  seems  to  be  rather  blacker  than  that 
of  Hand  C  or  that  of  the  main  scribe,  the  difference  does 
not  make  it  possible  to  assign  the  marks  for  the  deletion 
of  the  original  Sc.  iv  and  the  remnant  of  Sc.  v.  My  im- 
pression is  that  when  Tilney  had  finished  with  Sc.  iii  he 
realized  that  piecemeal  reformation  of  this  section  of  the 
play  was  hopeless,  and  that  he  then  turned  back  to  the 
first  page,  and  wrote  the  note  'Leaue  out  y*  insurrection 
wholy  &  y*  Cause  ther  off  &  begin  w*  Sr  Tho:  Moore 
att  y°  mayors  sessions  <  =  Sc.  ii)  w*  a  reportt  afterwardes 
off  his  good  service  don  beinge  Shriue  off  London  vppon 
a  mutiny  Agaynst  y6  Lumbardes  only  by  A  shortt  reportt 
&  nott  otherwise  att  your  own  perrilles  E.  Tyllney*.   He 
did  not  interfere  with  the  harmless  second  section  of  the 
play,  but  in  Sc.  x  he  crossed  out  the  episode  of  More's 
resignation,  and  wrote  in  the  margin  what  appears  to  be 
All  Altr'. 

Dr.  Greg  has  identified  the  original  hand  with  Anthony 
Munday's  and  Hand  E  with  Thomas  Dekker's,  accepts 
Dr.  Tannenbaum's  identification  of  Hand  A  with 
Henry  Chettle's,  but  decisively  rejects  that  of  Hand  C 
with  Thomas  Kyd's.  Nothing  indeed  that  we  know  of 
Kyd's  life,  except  perhaps  that  his  father  was  a  scrivener, 
suggests  that  he  is  likely  to  have  been  a  book-keeper  as  well 
as  a  dramatist;  and  there  is  a  high  probability  that  the  plot 
of  2  Fortune's  Tennis,  which  C  wrote,  belongs  to  1597  or 
1 598,  when  Kyd  was  long  dead.  Hand  B  may  possibly  be 


$04  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap.  X 

Thomas  Key-wood's,  but  that  is  far  from  certain.  Pre- 
sumably Munday  was  himself  the  author  of  at  least  part 
of  the  original  play.  The  substitution  in  his  hand  of  an 
alternative  ending  for  that  first  written  to  the  last  scene 
looks  like  the  work  of  an  author.  So  do  some  of  the  cur- 
rente  calamo  corrections  in  the  text.  Others,  however, 
might  be  those  of  a  scribe.  Attempts  have  been  made  to 
trace  original  work  by  Chettle,  Heywood,  Dekker,  and 
even  Chapman,  on  literary  grounds,  and  similarly.to  distri- 
bute responsibility  for  the  additions  m  Cs  hand.  These  lie 
outside  the  scope  of  the  present  study.  But  the  question 
of  Shakespeare's  participation  must  be  faced.  Hand  D  is 
claimed  as  his,  and  if  the  claim  is  sound,  it  is  difficult  to 
resist  the  conclusion  that  he  was  also  the  author  of  Addi- 
tion II(c),  in  that  hand.  Both  palaeographical  and  literary 
considerations  are  relevant.  But  the  discussion  starts  with 
palaeography,  in  the  theory  of  Sir  E.  Maunde  Thompson 
that  the  hand  is  the  same  as  that  found  in  the  few  undis- 
puted fragments  of  Shakespeare's  script.  Of  these  there 
are  six,  all,  with  one  small  exception,  limited  to  signatures. 
The  earliest  (Plate  XII,  fig.  a)  is  attached  to  the  Deposition 
of  1 1  May  1 6 1 2  in  the  case  of  Belott  v.  Mountjoy  (App.  A, 
no.  x).  It  is  abbreviated  in  the  form 


Wdhn  Shaksp 


Conceivably  the  baptismal  name  reads  'Wihn';  if  not, 
the  *m'  has  not  its  three  minims  and  is  little  more  than 
a  flourish.  The  *p'  has  been  read  as  an  Italian  long  V. 
More  probably  it  is  the  contraction  for  'per',  with  a  cross- 
bar joined  by  a  left-hand  loop  to  the  root  of  the  letter. 
Here  it  may  serve  as  a  more  general  contraction  for 
'sper'  or  'spere'.  The  *k'  is  badly  blotted,  There  is  an 
ornamental  dot  in  the  final  loop  of  the  W,  which  can  be 
paralleled  from  other  lay  hands,  as  well  as  those  of  scri- 
veners. Next  come  the  signatures  to  the  Conveyance  (Fig. 
3)  of  10  March  and  Mortgage  (Fig.  c)  of  u  March 
1 6 1 3  (cf.  App.  A,  no.  xxiii).  They  are  both  on  parchment 
strips  passed  through  slits  in  the  parchment  of  the  deeds. 
That  to  the  Conveyance  is  in  two  lines,  which  is  again  not 


fv^tsu 

(a)  DEPOSITION 


(b)  CONVEYANCE 


(c)  MORTGAGE 
SHAKESPEARE'S  SIGNATURES 


(/)  WILL  (3) 
SHAKESPEARE'S  SIGNATURES 


Chap.  X  SIR  THOMAS  MORE  505 

unusual  in  Elizabethan  writing.  It  is  also  abbreviated, 
and  reads 

William 

Shakspe 

The  writing  is  close  to  the  right-hand  edge  of  the  strip, 
and  there  are  some  supplementary  ink  marks  on  this  edge 
and  on  the  body  of  the  deed  which  suggest  to  Sir  E,  M. 
Thompson  an  attempt  to  add  an  V,  which  would  pre- 
sumably have  left  the  contraction  mark  to  stand  for  a  final 
V  only.  The  *W'  is  blotted  and  has  the  ornamental  dot 
The  Mortgage  signature  is  again  abbreviated,  reading 

Wm  Shakspe 

It  is  disjointedly  written,  probably  because  the  parchment 
was  greasy.  There  is  no  dot  in  the  'W.  The  contraction 
mark  is  angularly  shaped  and  apparently  blotted  in  the 
centre.  It  has  been  read  as  a  superscribed  V,  but  that 
would  leave  the  name  incomplete.  Dr.  Tannenbaum  con- 
jectures that  Shakespeare  was  not  present  at  the  legal 
completion  of  the  purchase  transactions,  that  he  signed  the 
strips  before  they  were  inserted  in  the  deed,  and  that,  in 
trimming  them  to  fit  the  slits,  the  scrivener  mutilated  the 
ends  of  the  signatures.  This  does  not  sound  plausible  as 
legal  procedure.  Moreover,  there  was  plenty  of  room  for 
trimming  on  the  left-hand  side  of  the  slips.  It  is  surely  a 
lame  suggestion  that  'the  clerk  may  have  had  a  "supersti- 
tion" against  widening  a  prepared  slit  or  trimming  a  label  on 
the  left  side*.  Finally,  there  are  the  signatures  (Figs.  </-/) 
on  the  three  sheets  of  the  WilltA  25  March  i6i6(App.  A, 
no.xxiv).  That  on  the  first  sheet  is  again  in  two  lines.  It  is 
now  much  worn  and  faded,  and  the  surname  is  ^unde- 
cipherable  without  the  aid  of  old  facsimiles,  which  justify 
the  reading 

William 

Shakspere 

The  signature  on  the  second  sheet  is  legible  enough  as 

Willft  Shakspere 
But  the  descending  bow  of  an  'h'  in  the  line  above  has  led 


506  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap.  X 

to  the  supposition  that  the  first  V  was  followed  by  an  Y, 
and  to  the  erroneous  reading  'Shakspeare'.  The  'W  in 
these  two  signatures  has  no  dot,  but  this  recurs  in  the 
final  and  legally  the  most  important  signature  on  the  third 
sheet  of  the  Will.  Here,  too,  the  spelling  differs.  The 
reading  is 

By  me  William  Shakspeare 

Sir  E.  M.  Thompson  thinks  that  the  signature  originally 
ended  with  a  contraction,  and  that  the  last  three  letters 
were  then  added.  They  are,  in  any  case,  worse  written 
than  the  rest. 

Innumerable  other  examples  of  Shakespeare's  hand- 
writing, mostly  inscriptions  in  books,  have  been  brought 
forward,  and  practically  all  of  them  are  unauthentic.  Dr. 
Tannenbaum  has  collected  facsimiles  of  108,  including  79 
Ireland  forgeries.1  A  recent  attempt  to  ascribe  to  Shake- 
speare the  jotting  on  the  Northumberland  MS.  (App.  B, 
no.  xvi),  in  which  his  name  and  the  titles  of  some  of  his 
plays  occur,  is  negligible.  A  copy  of  Ovid's  Metamor- 
f  hoses  (1502,  Aldus,  Venice)  in  the  Bodleian  has  the 
inscription  '  W*  Shr'  or  4Wm  Sh"'  on  the  title-page,  and 
opposite  it  on  the  front  cover  'This  little  Booke  of  Ovid 
was  given  to  me  by  W,  Hall  who  sayd  it  was  once  Will 
Shakesperes.  T.  N.  1 6  8  2*.  A  copy  of  John  Florio's  transla- 
tion (1603)  of  Montaigne's  Essayes,  now  in  the  British 
Museum,  has  and  already  had  before  1780  the  inscrip- 
tion 'Willm  Shakspere'  on  a  fly-leaf,  since  used  as 
a  lining  paper  to  the  cover.  Thompson  rejects  both  of 
these.  Madan  states  some  points  in  favour  of  the  Ovid. 
Tannenbaum  argues  for  the  authenticity  of  the  Mon- 
taigne, and  Taylor  adds  that  there  would  be  no  motive 
ftJr  a  forgery  before  Capell  had  called  attention  for  the  first 
time  in  1780  to  Shakespeare's  use  of  Montaigne. 

Only  the  six  legal  signatures  can  be  regarded  as  avail- 
able for  comparison  with  the  Hand  D  in  Sir  Thomas  More. 
They  can  be  relied  upon,  in  spite  of  some  rather  amateur 
attempts  to  suggest  that  some  of  them  may  have  been 

1  Some  are  reproduced  in  his  Problems. 


Chap.  X  SIR  THOMAS  MORE  507 

written  by  the  scriveners  concerned.  The  nature  of  the 
documents  makes  this  most  improbable  a  priori,  except 
perhaps  as  regards  the  'By  me*  on  the  will,  which,  however, 
is  not  in  the  hand  of  the  main  scribe,  or  of  Francis  Collins. 
It  has  every  appearance  of  continuity  with  the  signature. 
And  the  six  signatures  themselves,  although  differing  in 
some  details,  present  sufficient  common  features  to  justify, 
if  that  were  needed,  ascription  to  the  same  hand.  They 
are  not  the  work  of  an  illiterate  writer,  although  they  may 
seem  so  to  those  unfamiliar  with  the  'English'  type  of 
hand  in  which,  with  some  admixture  of 'Italian'  letters  and 
notably  the  long  medial  V,  they  are  written.  Sir  E.  M. 
Thompson  accepted  the  theory  that  they  show  signs  of 
writer's  cramp  or  some  other  nervous  disorder.  This  is 
repudiated  by  Dr.  Tannenbaum,  who  is,  I  believe,  an 
expert  in  such  disorders.  No  doubt  Shakespeare  may  have 
shared  the  usual  uncertainty  of  a  layman,  when  called  upon 
to  execute  a  legal  document.  The  will,  in  particular,  he 
may  have  signed  in  a  condition  of  physical  infirmity,  and 
exhaustion  may  account  for  the  comparative  badness  of 
the  second  signature  and  the  close  of  the  third.  It  is  not 
possible  to  be  certain  in  what  order  these  signatures  were 
made.  Later  legal  practice  would  suggest  that  the  opera- 
tive signature  on  the  last  sheet  was  given  first,  and  that 
afterwards  the  testator  turned  back  to  the  first  and  second 
sheets  and  signed  them  for  identification.  It  must  be 
added  that  signatures  are  not  always  fully  typical  of  a 
man's  ordinary  script,  that  a  good  many  years  must  have 
intervened  between  Sir  Thomas  More  and  the  earliest 
signature,  and  that  the  Shakespearean  examples  only  give 
eleven  out  of  the  twenty-six  minuscule  letters  of  the 
alphabet  and  only  three  majuscules.  The  basis  for  com- 
parison with  Hand  D  (Plate  XIII)  is  therefore  slight. 
Moreover,  both  hands  are  of  a  very  normal  kind.  Hand 
D  was  indeed  at  first  taken  to  be  identical  with  Hand  C. 
Sir  E.  M.  Thompson,  however,  was  able  to  discern  certain 
minor  peculiarities  distinctive  alike  of  Shakespeare  and  of 
Hand  D,  which  confirmed  his  general  impression  that  the 
two  hands  were  the  same.  He  found  them  using  similar 


5o8  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap.  X 

abnormal  forms  of  'a',  V,  'p',  V,  and  other  letters,  of 
which  one  at  least,  the  so-called  'spurred  a',  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  exactly  paralleled  elsewhere.  He  found  them 
also  using  the  same  two  normal  varieties  of  V,  *h',  and 
'p',  and  the  same  three  of  'a*  and  'k\  And  they  have  in 
common  the  dotted  'W,  the  looped  per  symbol,  and  a  habit 
of  beginning  certain  initial  letters  with  a  long,  fine  upstroke, 
to  the  similar  formation  of  which  an  example  in  each  hand 
of  a  needle-like  eye  at  the  base  bears  witness.  The  most 
elaborate  criticism  of  Sir  E.  M.  Thompson's  theory  has 
come  from  Dr.  Tannenbaum,  who  questions  the  validity  of 
some  of  his  points,  and  calls  attention  to  dissimilarities,  not 
only  in  individual  letter-forms,  but  also  in  general  features, 
such  as  the  distribution  of  light  and  heavy  strokes,  the 
shaping  of  contractions,  and  the  linking  of  letter  to  letter. 
Shakespeare's  pen,  he  thinks,  moved  stiffly,  and  D's  with 
facility.  D,  again,  generally  dots  his  Vs' ;  Shakespeare,  in 
his  signatures,  never  does.  I  am  no  palaeographer,  but 
so  far  as  a  layman  can  judge,  I  am  content  to  adopt  the 
cautious  conclusions  of  Dr.  Greg,  who  thinks  that,  while 
some  of  the  specific  tests  are  doubtful,  weight  must  be 
attached  to  the  effect  of  'numerous  hardly  definable  traits 
of  resemblance'  on  the  mind  of  so  experienced  a  student  as 
Sir  E.  M.  Thompson  at  the  end  of  an  exhaustive  investiga- 
tion; that  the  case  for  Shakespeare's  authorship  must  rest 
on  't$ie  convergence  of  a  number  of  independent  lines  of 
argument — palaeographic,  orthographic,  linguistic,  stylis- 
tic, psychological — and  not  on  any  one  alone';  and  that 
although  the  palaeographic  case  does  not  approach  com- 
plete proof,  it  may  be  sufficient,  in  the  absence  of  any  more 
plausible  candidate  for  D  among  dramatists  whose  hands 
are  known,  to  'incline  the  balance  of  probability  in  favour 
of  identification'. 

The  problem  has,  of  course,  been  approached  along  the 
other  lines  indicated  by  Dr.  Greg.  I  do  not  think  it  can  be 
said  that  the  quality  of  the  scene  is  such  as  to  make 
an  ascription  of  it  to  Shakespeare  imperative  on  purely 
literary  grounds.  On  the  other  hand,  I  think  that  it  might 
have  passed  well  enough  as  his  in  any  Elizabethan  play  of 


Chap.  X  SIR  THOMAS  MORE  509 

the  canon*    Professor  R.  W.  Chambers  has  shown  that 

its  combination  of  sympathy  for  the  psychology  of  the 

mob  with  a  strong  sense  of  order  and  degree,  as  maintainers 

of  the  social  system  against  anarchy,  is  consonant  with  the 

political  temper,  not  only  of  the  early  Cade  scenes,  but 

also  of  Julius  Caesar,  Troilus  and  Cressida,  and  Coriolanus. 

Technical  considerations  of  style,  again,  certainly  do  not 

rule  out  Shakespeare.  Professor  J.  D.  Wilson  has  listed 

'abnormal'  spellings  analogous  to  those  which  seem  (cf. 

i,  p.  187)  in  some  of  the  Quartos  to  have  escaped  the 

vigilance  of  the  compositors.  The  vocabulary  and  diction 

justify  themselves,  on  comparison  with  the  concordance, 

'as  quite  reasonably  Shakespearean,  in  spite  of  the  stric- 

tures of  Professor  Schticking.  There  are,  no  doubt,  words 

and  uses  of  words  which  do  not  precisely  recur,  but  that  is 

so  in  every  one  of  the  plays.    I  find  nothing  obviously 

rebellious  to  Shakespeare's  manner.1  The  same  is  true  of 

the  metre.  A  statistical  comparison  with  a  single  scene  is, 

of  course,  valueless,  but  More's  long  speech  shows  a  good 

deal  of  internal  pausation  and  other  variation  from  the 

early  blank-verse  norm.2  What  one  does  not  find  is  that 

absence  of  'blots'  for  which  Heminges  and  Condell  especi- 

ally lauded  Shakespeare.  There  are  a  score  of  places  which 

show  alterations  made  either  currente  calamo  or  as  after- 

thoughts.   And  even  then  there  were  some  oversights 

left  for  Hand  C  to  correct.  Perhaps  the  writer  did  not  take 

the  play  he  was  tinkering  very  seriously.   I  do  not  take  the 

statement  of  Heminges  and  Condell  very  seriously.   If 

the  scene  is  Shakespeare's,  we  get  some  useful  hints  to- 

wards the  interpretation  of  the  Quarto  and  Folio  texts. 

We  should  expect  to  find  there  a  writer  who  used  very  little 

'  Schticking  suggests  Heywood  as  lines  misunderstood  by  C  restored, 

a   poSble  aLnatL,   and   Pollard  yield  »  double  ^dmgs  (mducLng 

(SVs  Han*  14)  would  agree,  were  not  runs  of  5  and  4),  4  ^  J™™ 

Lywood  'ruled  out  by  his  hand-  ^j^*  „  ££.£ 

The  77  lines  of  More's  speech,  not     syllabic  feet  (of  which  one  is  tub), 


LmanytySaswemayconoeivethatthe     does  not  suggest  the  earhest 
author  meant  them  to  wad,  with  two     speaw. 


jio  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap.X 

Binctuation  and  attached  his  speech-prefixes — perhaps,  as 
r.  Greg  thinks,  after  completing  the  texts, — carelessly  and 
with  many  abbreviations,1  D's  pages  run  to  46,  50,  and 
52  script-lines  respectively.  At  the  foot  of  the  second  page, 
he  runs  four  verse-lines  into  two  script-lines.  Similarly,  he 
merges  a  final  half  line  with  a  full  one  at  the  foot  of  the  third. 
Professor  Wilson  regards  a  knowledge  of  D's  hand  as  help- 
ful in  detecting  the  causes  of  misprints  in  Shakespearean 
plays.  But  it  is,  after  all,  a  fairly  ordinary  'English'  hand, 
and  play  manuscripts  seem  to  have  been  usually  written 
in  'English*  hands. 

The  clues  to  date  and  to  the  company  concerned  with 
the  play  are  very  uncertain.  The  changes  in  Munday's 
script  put  the  original  text  earlier  than  his  Heaven  of 
the  Mynde  (1602)  and  later  than  John  a  Kent,  but  as  the 
4 1 596'  on  the  John  a  Kent  manuscript  is  not  held  to  be  his, 
and  therefore  does  not  necessarily  date  the  play,  this  may 
be  early.  •  Munday  may  quite  well  have  been  writing  by 
1 580,  although  it  is  not  necessary  to  go  so  far  back  as  this,2 
The  relation,  if  any,  of  John  a  Kent  to  the  Admiral's  Wise 
Man  of  West  Chester  in  1594  is  obscure.  Tilney  was 
Master  of  the  Revels  from  1579  to  1610;  Buck  cannot 
be  shown  to  have  deputized  for  him  before  1603.  The 
mention  of  'Mason  among  the  Kings  players'  (i  1 5 1)  is  in- 
conclusive ;  none  is  known  in  the  companies  of  Henry  VIII 
or  James,  So  are  those  ( 1 006, 1 1 4  8)  of  Ogle  as  a  theatrical 
furnisher;  Ogles  were  so  occupied  from  1571  to  15853  and 
in  1 6oo.4  So  is  that  to  the  scouring  of  Moorditch,  which 
is,  moreover,  in  an  Addition  (IV,  2 1 5).  It  was  scoured  in 
1595,  Jsut  the  allusion  would  have  been  as  much  in  place 
while  it  wanted  scouring.  The  back-sword  men  Garret 
and  George  Philpots  (458)  are  unknown.  More  is  to  be 
learnt  from  Tilney's  dealings  with  the  play,  which  show 
that  he  was  nervous  of  references  to  the  question  of  aliens, 

1  In  the  77  lines  cited  above,  the  MS.  Of  the  16  strong  internal  ones,  i  has  a 

has  only  25  commas  and  2  semi-colons,  full-stop,  2  semi-colons  and  9  commasj 

none  of  either  at  line-ends.  There  arc  4  are  unstopped. 

4  full-stops,  3  at  line-ends.  There  are  *  MX.  Stage,  iii.  ^1- 

no  colons.  Interruptions  have  no  stops.  3  Feuillerat,  Elix.  passim. 

Many  necessary  pauses  are  unstopped.  *  Henslowe,  i.  1 18. 


Chap.  X  SIR  THOMAS  MORE  5 1 1 

This  had  become  a  subject  for  agitation  in  London,  as  a  re- 
sult of  the  competition  with  native  handicraftsmen  of  Dutch 
and  Flemish  immigrants  since  1561  and  of  French  Hugue- 
nots since  1580.  It  is  noticeable  that,  while  only  Lombards 
and  French  were  concerned  in  More's  day,  both  Munday 
(420,  687)  and  the  writers  of  Additions  (II,  19,  40,  55, 
250)  bring  in  the  Dutch  and  Flemish.  Tilney  does  not  seem 
to  mind  much  about  the  Lombards,  but  dislikes  mention  of 
the  French  or  of  Strangers'  generally.  The  agitation  was 
more  or  less  chronic,  but  active  in  1586,  when  there  were 
mutterings  of  another  *Y11  May  Daye',  in  1592-3,  and  in 
1 59 5, x  Any  one  of  these  dates  would  fit  the  original  play. 
The  theatrical  conditions  were  not,  however,  favourable 
(cf.  ch.  ii)  for  new  productions  between  23  June  1592  and 
April  1594;  nor  is  there  any  sign  of  Sir  Thomas  More  in 
Henslowe's  lists  of  performances  by  Strange's  and  Sussex's 
men  during  that  period.  The  Additions  have,  of  course,  to 
be  considered,  as  well  as  the  original.  It  is  unfortunate 
that  we  cannot  say  with  certainty  whether  they  were  made 
before  or  after  the  submission  of  the  manuscript  for 
censorship.  Dr.  Greg  thinks  that  they  must  have  been 
made  before,  on  the  ground  that  most  of  the  alterations 
are  of  a  literary  character,  and  that  nobody  could  have 
seriously  supposed  that  those  in  the  riot  scenes  in  any  way 
carried  out  Tilney's  instructions.  The  argument  is  a 
strong  one.  On  the  other  hand,  it  obliges  us  to  suppose  that 
the  play  was  sent  to  Tilney  in  a  most  untidy  and  in  places 
almost  unintelligible  condition;  in  a  variety  of  hands; 
with  long  passages  only  marked  for  deletion  by  marginal 
lines;  with  Addition  I  fitted  into  the  wrong  scene;  with 
Addition  VI  so  fitted  in  as  to  break  the  continuity  of  Sc.  ix, 
and  still  containing  a  draft  of  part  of  Addition  V.  If  Tilney 
was  prepared  to  stand  this,  he  must  have  been  very  easy- 
going. Moreover,  why  should  a  playjust  written  have 
been  subjected  to  so  much  literary  revision?  I  think  it  is 
just  possible  that  Sir  Thomas  More  was  laid  aside  when 

'  Documents  are  in  Dasent,  P.C.  Oveyney,  ii.  25*  5  J-  S- Burn,  Hist. 
Acts,  xxii.  506  (2  June  159*)  and  of  foreign  Protestant  tofagets  (1846), 
M.'J  Hand,  33  ('5*6,  '593*  *595)  *  <*•  I0>  "• 


512  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap.  X 

Tilhey  sent  it  back,  and  taken  up  later  by  new  writers, 
with  different  literary  notions  from  Munday's,  in  the 
hope  that  the  political  cloud  had  blown  by  and  that  Tilney 
might  now  be  persuaded  to  allow  the  main  original  struc- 
ture to  stand.  If  so,  probably  the  hope  proved  fallacious 
and  the  revision  was  never  completed.  I  do  not  pretend 
to  decide  between  the  alternatives.  The  matter  would  be 
set  at  rest  if  Tilney's  hand  or  ink  could  be  identified  in  the 
Additions.  But  it  is  not  so,  and  although  Dr.  Greg  thinks 
that  a  passage  (II,  68-75)  introducing  Sir  John  Munday 
has  been  scored  out  on  political  grounds,  and  therefore 
by  Tilney,  my  own  impression  is  that  this  was  done  to 
save  a  once-speaking  character  by  persons  less  interested 
than  Anthony  Munday  in  his  namesake,  whom  he  had 
probably  introduced  in  the  original  Sc.  iv.  As  it  stands, 
the  manuscript  seems  inadequate  for  prompt-copy.  Be- 
sides perfecting  the  insertionsy  the  book-keeper  has  still  to 
supply  a  few  missing  entries  and  speech-prefixes.  Many 
exits  are  unmarked,  but  about  these  book-keepers  do 
not  appear  (cf.  p.  120)  to  have  troubled  much.  In  the 
text  itself,  many  ragged  edges  left  by  deletions  have  still 
to  be  joined.  The  name  of  an  actor,  T.  Goodal,  written 
against  the  entry  of  a  Messenger  in  Addition  V  suggests 
that  at  least  the  casting  had  been  done.  It  is  true  that 
there  are  many  very  small  parts  in  the  play,  and  one  would 
expect  a  book-keeper,  if  he  wanted  a  reminder  (cf.  p.  122) 
for  one  of  these,  to  want  it  for  others.  But  there  is  equally 
sparse  casting  in  other  plays.  Dr.  Tannenbaum  treats 
the  name  as  a  forgery  by  Collier,  and  links  it  with  what 
looks  like  a  marginal  'Laneham'  (in)  in  apparently 
modern  ink.  Dr.  Greg,  however,  is  clear  that,  while  'Lane- 
ham'  is  to  be  suspected  as  Collier's,  a  forgery  of  the  Goodal 
note  is  out  of  the  question.1  He  tells  me  that  the  hand 
is  doubtless  Cs,  and  that  tests  of  the  ink  have  disclosed 
no  difference.  Collier  did  in  fact  state,  as  early  as  1835, 
that  a  Goodale  acted  with  Laneham  in  Sir  Thomas  More.2 
He  called  him  Bapti$te  Goodale,  and  included  him  in 

1  P.M.LJi.  xliv,  63.  Tannenbaum  defends  his  view  (ibid. 
*  N*u>  Facts,  12.  V 


Chap.  X  SIR  THOMAS  MORE  513 

a  forged  list  of  Queen's  men  at  the  Blackfriars  in  1589,* 
Thomas  Goodale  had  been  one  of  Lord  Berkeley's  men 
in  1 58 1.2  He  played  in  2  Seven  Deadly  Sins  (cf, 
p.  44)  for  Strange's,  or  the  Admiral's,  or  the  combined 
Alleyn  company  about  1590.  He  was  a  mercer  and 
had  a  business  transaction  with  John  Alleyn  and  Robert 
Lee,  who  had  both  also  been  connected  with  those  com- 
panies, in  I593-3  He  was  alive  and  a  player  in  1598 
and  perhaps  1599,  but  we  do  not  know  what  company 
he  was  then  of.4  Hand  C  was  book-keeper  to  the  2  Deadly 
Sins  company  about  1590,  and  to  the  later  Admiral's 
in  1597  or  1598  (cf.  p.  124).  We  do  not  know 
when  he  joined  them  or  how  long  he  stayed  with 
them.  If  Shakespeare  wrote  the  Addition,  these  facts 
would  perhaps  fit  best  with  a  date  in  1592-3.  But  we 
are  first  certain  of  Heywood  (born,  as  Professor  Sisson 
kindly  tells  me,  in  1573)  as  a  playwright  in  1596, 
and  of  Dekker  (born  c.  1572)  in  1598;  and  1592-3 
would  be  rather  early  for  either  of  them.  On  the  hypo- 
thesis of  a  second  attempt  to  produce  Sir  Thomas  More^  the 
recrudescence  of  anti-alien  agitation  in  1 595  might  explain 
a  second  abandonment.  On  grounds  of  style  and  parallels, 
this  or  even  a  later  date  for  Shakespeare's  intervention 
would  not  particularly  surprise  me.  Schticking  would 
group  Sir  Thomas  More  as  a  whole  with  the  Chamber- 
lain's Thomas  Lord  Cromwell  (cf.  p.  534),  'lately  acted*  in 
1602  and  the  Admiral's  Wolsey  plays  of  1601-2,*  but 
that  seems  too  late  for  the  stage  of  development  reached  by 
Munday's  script.  I  am  afraid  that  the  date,  or  dates, 
must  remain  undetermined.  Some  evidence  tending  to 
suggest  that  the  play  did  ultimately  get  performed  is  not 
very  conclusive.  Baskerville  cites  parallels  which  make 
him  think  that  Jonson  borrowed  from  Sc.  ii  for  the  purse- 
cutting  scene  (ii.  6)  in  Bartholomew  Fair,  but  the  source, 
whatever  it  was,  may  have  been  open  to  Jonson,  Golding, 
perhaps  more  pertinently,  notes  a  double  echo  in  Munday 

1  App.  F.  xi  (6).  4  P.M.LJI.  xii.  100. 

a  Ibid.  ii.  103.  5  EB*.  Stage,  ii.  1785  iv.  8. 

»  Warner,  DulwicA  MSS,  iv.  29. 
9142.1  L  1 


514  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO      Chap.  X 

and  Chettle's  Death  of  Robert,  Earl  of  Huntingdon  (1598), 
iv.  i,  of  the  long-haired  ruffian  and  the  Lady  Vanity  in 
S.T.M.  797,  1080.  But  obviously  Munday,  if  not  also 
Chettle,  was  familiar  with  the  play,  whether  it  was  per- 
formed or  not.  Of  course,  it  might  have  been  further 
revised  and  licensed  on  a  fair  copy,  but  why  then  should 
the  rough  copy  be  carefully  wrappered  and  preserved  as 
The  Booke  of  Sir  Thomas  Moore1  ? 

One  more  point.  If  Shakespeare  wrote  Addition  II(c), 
is  it  not  possible  that  he  also  wrote  Addition  III,  although 
it  is  in  C's  hand  ? 

It  is  in  heaven  that  I  am  thus  and  thus 

And  that  wch  we  prophanlie  terme  or  fortuns 

Is  the  provision  of  the  power  aboue 

fitted  and  shapte  lust  to  that  strength  of  nature 

wch  we  are  borne  <?  withal;)  good  god  good  god 

that  I  from  such  an  humble  bench  of  birth 

should  stepp  as  twere  vp  to  my  Countries  head 

And  give  the  law  out  ther  <;>  I  in  my  fathers  lif 

to  take  prerogative  and  tyth  of  knees 

from  elder  kinsmen  and  him  bynd  by  my  place 

to  give  the  smooth  and  dexter  way  to  me 

that  owe  it  him  by  nature,  sure  thes  things 

not  phisickt  by  respecte  might  turne  or  bloud 

to  much  Coruption.  but  moore.   the  more  thou  hast 

ether  of  honor  office  wealth  and  calling 

wch  might  accite  thee  to  embrace  and  hugg  them 

the  more  doe  thou  in  serpents  natures  thinke  them<,> 

feare  ther  gay  skinns  wth  thought  of  ther  sharpe  state 

And  lett  this  be  thy  maxime,  to  be  greate 

Is  when  the  thred  of  hazard  is  once  Spun 

A  bottom  great  woond  vpp  greatly  vndonn. 

My  attention  was  first  called  to  the  passage  by  the  parallel 
in  the  first  line  to  Oth.  i.  3.  322 : 

'tis  in  ourselves  that  we  are  thus  or  thus. 

But  the  whole  is  at  least  as  good  as  anything  in  Addi- 
tion II(c),    The  vocabulary  is   consistent  with  Shake- 


Chap.  X  SIR  THOMAS  MORE  5 1 5 

speare's.1  The  coupling  of  words,  especially  of  the  English 
'smooth'  with  the  Latin  'dexter'  is  like  him.  Even  the  pun 
in  the  fourteenth  line  is  characteristic. 

II.    EDWARD  THE  THIRD 

[S.R.  1595.3  primo  die  Decembris  Cutbert  Burby 
Entred  for  his  copie  vnder  the  handes  of  the  wardens  A 
booke  Intitled  Edward  the  Third  and  the  Blacke  Prince 
their  warres  with  kinge  John  of  Fraunce  vjd.  (Arber,  iii.  5  5). 

"Q  i  •  i  $  9  6 .]  The  Raigne  of  King  Edward  the  third :  As  it 
iath  bin  sundrie  times  plaied  about  the  Citie  of  London. 
[Ornament]  London,  Printed  for  Cuthbert  Burby.  1596, 
'Head-  and  Running-titles]  The  Raigne  of  K,  Edward  The 
third. 

[Q2.  1599,]  [Ornament]  The  Raigne  of  King  Edward 
the  Third.  As  it  hath  bene  sundry  times  played  about 
the  Citie  of  London  [Stafford's  device  (McKerrow  281)] 
Imprinted  at  London  by  Simon  Stafford,  for  Cuthbert 
Burby:  And  are  to  be  sold  at  his  shop  neere  the  Royall 
Exchange.  1599.  [Head- and  Running-titles]  The  Raigne 
of  King  Edward  the  third. 

[S.R.]  Transfers  by  Mrs.  Burby  to  William  Welby  on 
1 6  October  1609,  Welby  to  Thomas  Snodham  on 
2  March  1618,  Mrs.  Snodham  to  William  Stansby  on 
23  February  1626.  Mrs.  Stansby  to  George  Bishop  on  4 
March  1639  (Arber,  iii.  420,  621 ;  iv.  152,  459). 

Modern  Editions.  E.  Capell  (1759-60,  Prolusions)}  K.  Warnke 
and  L.  Proescholdt  (1886);  G.  C.  Moore  Smith  (1897)5  C  F. 
Tucker  Brooke  (1908,  Sh.  Apocrypha,  67). 

'  W.T.  i.  2.  313,  'whom  I  from  IV,  T.N.,  Lear),  'dexter'  of  a  cheek . 

meaner  form  Have  bench'd  and  rear'd  (T.C.  iv.  5.  128),  'accite'  in  this  sense 

to  worship';  T.C.  i.  3.  io6,'The  primo-  (2  Hen.  IV,  ii.  2.  64),  as  well  as  that  of 

genitive  and  due  of  birth,  Prerogative  'summon*  (2  Hen.  IF,  v.  2.  1415  T.A. 

of  age'.  Shakespeare  is  rather  fond  of  i.  x.  27).  'Respect'  has  many  shades  of 

'prerogative',  'physic'  (vb.),  'hazard',  meaning;  that  of  'reflection'  is  not  un- 

and   the   thread*   of  life,  which  is  common;  e.g. Ham.  iii.  i.  68,  There  s 

'spun'  in  2  Hen.  VI,  iv.  2. 3 1 .      He  has  the  respect,  That  makes  calamity  of  so 

the  'bottom'   of  thread  (T.S.,  T.G.,  long  life'.  I  do  not  find  'tithe'  in  the 

M.N.D.),  'corrupt'  blood  (K.J.,  2  Hen.  general  sense  of  'tribute . 

til 


5i6  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap.  X 

Dissertations.  H.  v.  Friesen,  Ed.  Ill,  angeblich  dn  Stuck  von  Sh.  (1867, 
J.  ii.  64);  J.  P.  Collier,  Ed.  Ill,  A  Historical  Play  by  Sh.  (1874);  A. 
Teetgen,  Ai.V  Ed.  Ill  (1875);  A.  C.  Swinburne,  On  the  Historical  Play 
of  Ed.  7/7(1879,  Gent.Mag.;  1880,  &c.,  Study  <?/&*.);  E.Phipson,  Ed.III 
(1889,  N.S.S.  Trans.  58*);  G.  Liebau,  K.Ed.  Ill  von  England  und  die 
Grafin  von  Salisbury  (1900,  1901),  K.  Ed.  777  von  England  im  Lichte 
EuropaischerPoesie  (1901) ;  R.  M.  Smith,  Ed.  777  (191 1,  J.E.G.P.  x.  90); 
A.  Platt,  Ed.  777  and  Sh's  Sonnets  (1911,  M.L.R.  vi.  5 1 1);  S.  R.  Golding, 
The  Authorship  of  Ed.  777  (1928,  N.Q.  cliv.  313). 

There  is  no  external  evidence  for  ascribing  any  part  of 
Edward  III  to  Shakespeare,  since  we  can  hardly  account 
as  such  its  inclusion  with  Edward  II  and  Edward  IV  as  his 
in  Rogers  and  Ley's  play-list  of  1 656.1  Capell's  claim  for 
Shakespeare  on  internal  grounds  was  blessed  by  the  poetic 
judgement  of  Tennyson  and  condemned  by  that  of  Swin- 
burne. As  a  whole  the  play  continues,  if  only  as  a  belated 
survivor,  the  manner  of  the  early  school,  and  stylistic  dis- 
crimination is  therefore  (cf.  p.  223)  difficult.  But  prob- 
ably modern  criticism  is  right  in  finding  two  hands,  of 
which  one  only  requires  serious  consideration  as  Shake- 
speare's. This  begins  in  i.  2,  not  I  think  before  1.  94,  and 
goes  on  to  the  end  of  Act  ii,  taking  a  complete  episode  of 
the  wooing  of  the  Countess  of  Salisbury  by  Edward,  which 
delays  the  main  progress  of  the  chronicle  history.  Its 
literary  quality  is  higher  than  that  of  the  bulk  of  the  play, 
and  it  makes  a  comparatively  free  use,  about  12  per  cent., 
of  feminine  endings.  This  alone  would  not  be  conclusive, 
since  feminine  endings  are  much  affected  (cf.  p.  261) 
by  differences  of  subject-matter.  But  these  scenes  are  also 
marked  by  a  constant  habit  of  ringing  the  changes  on 
individual  words,  which  often  run  through  longish 
speeches  or  sections  of  dialogue.  This  feature  is  not 
apparent  in  the  rest  of  the  play,  except  in  iv.  4,  and  as  this 
scene  is  also  of  better  quality  than  the  rest  and  again  has  a 
fairly  large  number  of  feminine  endings,  it  may  possibly  be 
due  to  the  hand  of  Act  ii.  Confidence  in  dealing  with  work 
of  this  character,  when  we  do  not  know  either  its  precise 
date  or  the  company  for  which  it  is  done,  would  be  absurd. 
But  it  is  quite  possible  that  these  sceiies  may  be  Shake- 

1  Greg,  Masques,  kiv. 


Chap.  X  EDWARD  THE  THIRD  517 

speare's.  The  ringing  of  changes  is  like  him,  and  the  light 
handling  in  ii.  i  of  Lodwick's  love-poetry.  Moore  Smith 
notes  his  'battledore  play  of  thought'.  Some  weight, 
moreover,  must  be  given  to  the  appearance  of  the  line 

Lilies  that  fester  smell  far  worse  than  weeds 
both  as  ii.  i.  451  and  in  Sonn.  xciv.  14,  and  in  a  less 
degree  to  the  use  of  'scarlet  ornaments'  for  blushes  in 
ii.  i.  10  and  for  sealing  lips  in  Sonn.  cxlii.  6.  I  am  not 
much  impressed  by  the  arguments  which  would  find  these 
phrases  more  appropriate  in  one  or  the  other  connexion. 
But  the  repetition  of  the  first  at  least  is  something  more 
than  an  echo,  and  on  the  whole  it  seems  less  plausible  to 
suppose  that  Shakespeare  borrowed  from  another  man's 
play,  than  that  he  made  a  double  use,  once  in  public  and 
once  in  poems  for  which  he  probably  did  not,  when  writing 
them,  contemplate  publicity.  If  the  Edward  III  scenes 
are  Shakespeare's,  the  relation  to  the  Sonnets,  and  possibly 
also  the  allusion  (ii.  2.  153)  to  Hero  and  Leander  may 
suggest  a  date  in  1594—5.  So  does  a  comparison  of  the 
Countess  (ii.  2.  193)  to  Lucrece  as 

her,  whose  ransacked  treasury  hath  task'd 
The  vain  endeavour  of  so  many  pens. 

This  allusion  might,  of  course,  have  come  either  from 
Shakespeare  himself,  or  from  another.  The  proportion  of 
feminine  endings  is  not  too  low  for  that  period,  outside 
comedy.  Shakespeare  had  more  in  Richard  III,  but  about 
as  many  in  2,  3  Henry  VI,  if  those  are  his,  and  as  a  whole 
the  play  rather  recalls  that  early  period.  I  do  not  feel  able 
to  attempt  any  serious  identification  of  the  second  hand. 
Peele,  much  given  to  patriotic  writing,  was  available  at 
any  likely  date.  But  we  do  not  know  by  what  writers  the 
tradition  of  the  old  school  may  have  been  continued  after 
1 5  9  3  •  I£  however,  the  play  is  of  earlier  date,  Greene  may  be 
also  a  possibility.  Robertson  is  confident  that  Marlowe  was 
the  original  writer,  and  that  there  was  rehandling,  especially 
of  the  Countess  episode,  by  Greene;  and  thinks  that  he  can 
trace  contributions  by  both  Peele  and  Kyd.  If  there  is  any 
such  amalgam,  we  have  no  tests  sufficient  to  dissolve  it. 


5i8  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap.X 

But  I  do  not  see  any  evidence  of  revision.  The  Countess 
episode  is  linked  to  the  rest  by  references  at  iii.  3.  1 55^and 
iii.  5.  100,  and  R.  M,  Smith  points  out  that  both  writers 
use  Froissart  for  incidents  not  in  Holinshed.  For  the 
Countess  episode  Painter,  who  repeats  additions  made  to 
Froissart  by  Bandello,  is  also  drawn  upon.  Robertson's 
treatment  does  not  sufficiently  keep  apart  the  problems  of 
the  two  sections.  In  that  claimed  for  Shakespeare,  the 
feminine  endings  are  dead  against  both  Marlowe  and 
Greene.  Robertson  attempts  to  get  over  this  by  assuming 
that  in  plays  later  than  those  known  to  IDC  theirs,  they 
both  increased  their  use  of  this  metrical  variation.  But  this 
is  merely  a  priori. 

III.   PERICLES 

[S,R.  1608.]  20  Maij.  Edward  Blount.  Entred  for  his 
copie  vnder  thandes  of  Sir  George  Buck  knight  and 
Master  Warden  Seton  A  booke  called,  the  booke  of 
Pericles  prynce  of  Tyre  (Arber,  iii.  378). 

[Qi.  1609.]  The  Late,  And  much  admired  Play,  Called 
Pericles,  Prince  of  Tyre.  With  the  true  Relation  of  the 
whole  Historic,  aduentures,  and  fortunes  of  the  said 
Prince:  As  also,  The  no  lesse  strange,  and  worthy 
accidents,  in  the  Birth  and  Life,  of  his  Daughter  Mariana. 
As  it  hath  been  diuers  and  sundry  times  acted  by  his 
Maiesties  Seruants,  at  the  Globe  on  the  Banck-side.  By 
William  Shakespeare.  [Ornament]  Imprinted  at  London 
(by  William  White)  for  Henry  Gosson,  and  are  to  be  sold 
at  the  signe  of  the  Sunne  in  Pater-noster  row,  &c.  1609. 
[Head-title]  The  Play  of  Pericles  Prince  of  Tyre,  tec. 
[Running-title]  Pericles  Prince  of  Tyre,  [or]  The  Play  of 
rericles  Prince  of  Tyre, 

[Rules  before  Gower  speeches  introducing  Acts  ii,.iii.] 
Facsimiles.  C.  Praetorius  (1886,  Sh.  Q.  xri,  ed.  P.  Z.  Round;  S.  Lee 


[Q2.   1609.]    [Title-page   and  Head-title]    As  in    Qi. 
[Running-title]  The  Play  of  Pericles  Prince  of  Tyre. 


Chap.X  PERICLES  519 

[Differentiated  from  Qi  by  'Eneer  Gower'  for  'Enter  Gower'  on 
sign.  A  2  and  other  variant  readings.] 

Facsimile.  C.  Praetorius  (1886,  Sh.  Q.  xxii,  ed.  P.  Z.  Round). 
[£3.  161 1.]  The  Late  And  much  admired  Play,  Called 
Pericles,  Prince  of  Tyre.  With  the  true  Relation  of  the 
whole  History,  aduentures,  and  fortunes  of  the  sayd 
Prince :  As  also,  The  no  lesse  strange  and  worthy  accidents, 
in  the  Birth  and  Life,  of  his  Daughter  Mariana.  As  it  hath 
beene  diuers  and  sundry  times  acted  by  his  Maiestyes 
Seruants,  at  the  Globe  on  the  Banck-side.  By  William 
Shakespeare.  [Ornaments]  Printed  at  London  by  S(imon> 
Stafford),  1611.  {Head-title}  The  Play  of  Pericles 
Prince  of  Tyre,  &c.  [Running-title]  The  Play  of  Pericles 
Prince  of  Tyre. 

[Q4.  1619,]  The  Late,  And  much  admired  Play,  Called 
Pericles,  Prince  of  Tyre.  With  the  true  Relation  of  the 
whole  History,  aduentures,  and  fortunes  of  the  saide 
Prince.  Written  by  W.  Shakespeare.  [Jaggard's  device 
(McKerrow  283)]  Printed  for  T(homas)  P(avier)  1619. 
[Head-title']  The  History  of  Pericles  Prince  of  Tyre. 
[Running-title]  Pericles  Prince  of  Tyre. 

[One  of  the  Jaggard  reprints  (cf.  p.  133).  The  signatures  continue 
those  of  Q3  of  2,  3  Hen.  7L] 

[S.R.  1626.]  4°  August  1626.  Edward  Brewster  Robert 

Birde  Assigned  ouer  vnto  them  by  Mistris  Pavier  and 

Consent  of  a  full  Court  of  Assistantes  all  the  Estate  right 

title  and  Interest  which  Master  Thomas  Pavier  her  late 

husband  had  in  the  Copies  here  after  mencioned.  xxviij8 

viz*  ...  Master  Pavier 's  right  in  Shakesperes  plaies  or 

any  of  them  .  .  .  (Arber,  iv.  164). 

[Q5*  1630.]  I<ohn>  N<orton>  for  R.  B. 

[Two  issues.] 

[S.R.  1630.]  8°Nouembris  1630  Richard  Cotes.  Assigned 

ouer  unto  him  by  master  Bird  and  Consent  of  a  full  Court 

holden  this  day  All  his  estate  right  and  interest  in  the 

Copies  hereafter  menconed.  iiijs  .  .  .  Pericles  (Arber,  iv. 

242). 

[Arber's  Tersiles'  is  a  misreading ;  cf.  W.  W.  Greg,  Emendation^  32.] 


5zo  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap.  X 

[Q6,  1635.]  B7  Thomas  Cotes. 

[F3,  2nd  issue,  1664.]  .  .  .  And  unto  this  Impression  is 
added  seven  Playes,  never  before  Printed  in  Folio,  viz. 
Pericles  Prince  of  Tyre.  .  .  .  [Additional  plays,  pp.  1-20] 
The  much  admired  Play,  called  Pericles,  Prince  of  Tyre, 
With  the  true  Relation  of  the  whole  History,  Adventures, 
and  Fortunes  of  the  said  Prince.    Written  by  W.  Shake- 
speare, and  published  in  his  life  time. 
Parallel-Text.  A.  Morgan  (1891,  Ban&sideyXLv). 
Modem  Editions.     K.  Deighton  (1907,  1925,  Arderi)\   A.  R. 
Bellinger  (1925,  Yale}. 

Prose  Version. 

[1608.]   The  Painfull  Aduentures  of  Pericles  Prince  of 

Tyre.  Being  the  true  History  of  the  Play  of  Pericles,  as  it 

was  lately  presented  by  the  worthy  and  ancient  Poet  lohn 

Gower.    [Woodcut  of  Gower]   At  London  Printed  by 

T.  P(urfoot)  for  Nat.  Butter,  1608. 

[Only  examples   known  in   B.M.  and  in  Zurich   Stadtbiblio- 

thek.   Epistle  to  Henry  Fermor,  J.P.  of  Middlesex,  signed  George 

Wilkins.] 

Edition.  T.  Mommsen  (1857). 

Dissertations.  N.  Delius,  Vber  Shs  P.  (1868,  J.  iii.  175;  Abl.  i.  77); 
F.  G.  Fleay,  On  the  Play  of  P.  (1874,  N.S.S.  Trans.  195 ;  Manual,  209) ; 
R. Boyle,  P.(i882,£.£.v.  363),  On  Wilkinfs  Share  in  the  Play  called  Sh.'s 
P.  (1882,  N.S.S.  Trans.  323);  A.  H.  Smyth,  Bk.'s  P.  and  Afollonius  of 
Tyre  (1898);  H.  T.  Baker,  The  Authorship  of  P.  v.  j.  j-joi  (1907, 
M.LJt.xxii,222),  TheRelation  ofSh.'s  P. to  George  Wilkinf V Novel '(1908, 
PM.L.A.  xxiii.  100);  D.  L.  Thomas,  On  the  Play  P.  (1908,  E.S.  xxxix. 
210);  R.  M.  Garrett,  Gower  in  P.  (1912,  J.  xlviii.  13);  T.  S.  Graves,  On 
the  Date  and  Significance  of  P.  (1916,  M.P.xiii.  545);  K.  Steinhafiser, 
Die  Neueren  Anschauungen  uber  die  Echtheit  von  Shs  P.  (1918);  H.  D. 
Sykes,  Wilkins  and  Sh.'s  P.  (1919,  Sidelights  on  Sh.  143);  G.  Crosse,  P. 
on  the  Stage  (1921, 12  N.Q.  viii.  361);  H.  D.  Gray,  Heywood's  P.  Revised 
fy  Sh.  (1925,  PM.LA.  xl  507);  V,  0sterberg,  Grevinden  af  Salisbury  og 
MarinaafSh.  (1926);  R.P.  Cowl,  The  Authorship  of  P .  (1927);  P.  Allen, 
Sh.,  Jonson  and  Wilkins  as  Borrowers  (1928). 

The  priority  of  Qi  to  Qa  is  determined  on  small  typo- 
graphical points.  A  misprint  ofEneer  for  Enter  in  the  first 
stage-direction  serves  to  distinguish  £2.  The  text  is 
extremely  corrupt  and  even  in  the  free  rearrangement  of 


Chap.  X  PERICLES  52I 

modern  editions  many  lines  remain  unrhythmical  Long 
sections  of  verse,  especially  in  Acts  iii-v,  are  printed  as 
prose,  or  are  irregularly  divided.  This  prose  is  not  quite 
like  that  in  Lear,  because  it  has  more  punctuation,  but  it 
suggests  a  report,  possibly  with  the  aid  of  shorthand. 
There  may  have  been  some  omissions.  This  condition 
of  the  text  complicates  both  the  problem  of  authorship  and 
that  of  date.  The  most  obvious  thing  about  the  play  is 
that,  as  it  stands,  it  cannot  all  be  by  one  writer.  It  may  be 
divided  into  (a)  the  main  substance  of  Acts  i-ii,  (£)  that 
of  iii-v,  (c)  the  brothel  scenes,  iv.  2,  5,  6,  chiefly  in  prose, 
(d)  the  prologues  and  epilogue  spoken  by  Gower,  with  their 
dumb-shows.  These  include  iv.  4  and  v.  2,  which  divide 
the  last  two  acts  into  sections.  There  is  an  unmistakable 
difference  of  style  between  (a)  and  (i).  The  latter  is 
clearly  Shakespeare's  in  the  temper  and  manner  of  his  late 
romances,  and  the  best  passages  are  sufficient  to  dispose  of 
Cowl's  suggestion  that  a  deliberate  imitator  has  been  at 
work.  On  the  other  hand  (a)  does  not  read  like  Shake- 
speare at  any  stage  of  development.  It  is  fairly  competent 
verse,  but  without  distinction.  Many  rhymed  couplets  are 
awkwardly  interspersed,  and  there  are  only  two-thirds  as 
many  feminine  endings  as  in  (£).  One  might  be  tempted 
to  ascribe  to  Shakespeare  i.  i.  100: 

The  blind  mole  casts 

Copp'd  hills  towards  heaven,  to  tell  the  earth  is  throng'd 
By  man's  oppression;  and  the  poor  worm  doth  die  for't 

No  weight,  however,  can  be  attached  to  such  an  isolated 
passage.  Attempts  have  been  made  to  ascribe  (c)  to  a  third 
hand,  but  in  view  of  the  similar  scenes  in  Measure  for 
Measure,  there  is  no  reason  why  they  should  not  go  with 
(£),  and  several  phrases  seem  very  Shakespearean.  Of  the 
Gower  passages  (d)  those  before  the  first  four  acts  and  also 
v.  2  are  in  octosyllabic  couplets  of  intended  archaism. 
This  quality  is  not  so  obvious  in  the  decasyllabic  couplets 
of  the  others,  but  they  are  probably  by  the  same  hand  and 
not  Shakespeare's. 

In  some  form  the  play  must  have  existed  before  Blount's 


522  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap.  X 

registration  entry  of  20  May  1608.  This  is  clearly  for  a 
play,  as  Buck  was  the  licenser.  We  do  not  know  why 
Blount  never  published  a  Quarto,  or  why  he  did  not  take 
the  play  into  Fi.  It  is  of  course  possible  that  he  made  an 
unregistered  transfer  to  Gosson,  but  he  is  not  very  likely 
to  have  been  concerned  with  surreptitious  copy.  Pollard 
(cf.  p.  146)  suggests  that  his  was  a  'blocking'  entry,  but 
if  so  it  was  singularly  futile,  since,  so  far  as  we  know, 
he  did  not  intervene  when  Gosson  published,  A  per- 
formance of  Pericles  was  seen  (cf.  App.  D)  by  the  Vene- 
tian ambassador  Zorzi  Giustinian  at  some  date  between 
5  January  1606  and  23  November  1608.  The  prose 
novel  by  Wilkins  was  printed  in  1608,  and  it  is  safest 
(cf.  p.  175)  to  regard  this  as  a  calendar-year  date.  The 
relation  of  the  novel  to  the  play  is  obscure.  Wilkins,  in  the 
epistle,  offers  'a  poore  infant  of  my  braine'  and  this  does 
not  necessarily  refer  to  anything  but  the  novel  itself.  In 
an  'Argument7,  he  entreats  the  reader  'to  receiue  this 
Historic  in  the  same  maner  as  it  was  vnder  the  habite  of 
ancient  Gower  the  famous  English  Poet,  by  the  Kings 
Maiesties  Players  excellently  presented*.  He  makes  no 
other  reference  to  Gower  except  on  the  title-page  and  in 
a  heading  to  ch.  i.  The  incidents  narrated  by  Gower  as 
presenter  of  the  play  come  in  the  ordinary  run  of  the 
novel.  But  in  the  novel  as  in  the  play  the  names  of  the 
characters  are  substantially  from  Gower's  Confessio  Aman- 
tis,  although  in  both  much  use  is  made  of  Laurence 
Twine's  The  Patterne  of  Paynfull  Adventures,  the  title  of 
which  that  of  the  novel  echoes.  This  was  registered  in 
1 576.1  A  later  undated  edition  and  one  of  1 607  are  extant. 
The  names  Pericles  and  Marina,  neither  in  Gower  nor 
in  Twine,  are  also  common  to  the  novel  and  the  play. 
It  has  often  been  held  that  the  second  hand  of  the  play  is 
that  of  Wilkins  himself.  The  case  is  most  fully  put  by 
Sykes,  on  the  basis  of  a  stylistic  comparison  with  other 
work  of  Wilkins.  There  is,  however,  little  to  go  upon. 
Beyond  the  novel  itself  and  a  prose  pamphlet  on  The 
Miseries  of  Barbary  (1603)  the  recorded  and  independent 

1  Arber,  ii.  301. 


Chap.  X  PERICLES  523 

writing  of  Wilkins  is  limited  to  his  Miseries  of  Enforced 
Marriage  (1607),  for  the  King's  men.1  He  shared  with 
Day  and  William  Rowley  in  The  Travels  of  Three  English 
Brothers  (1607)  for  the  Queen's,2  and  with  Dekker  in  the 
pamphlet  Jests  to  Make  Ton  Merrie  ( 1 607).  Conjecture  has 
assigned  to  him  A  Yorkshire  Tragedy  (cf.  p.  535),  and 
shares  in  Timon  of  Athens  and  Day's  Law  Tricks  (i  608), 
probably  produced  in  1604.3  The  often  repeated  state- 
ment of  Fleay,  L.PP.  302,  that  he  'left  the  King's  company 
for  the  Queen's  in  1607'  means  nothing.  He  was  not  an 
actor  or  tied  to  any  company.  I  do  not  myself  feel  any  very 
strong  conviction  for  or  against  a  common  style  between 
Pericles  i,  ii  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Miseries  and  Travels 
on  the  other.  It  is  part  of  Sykes's  case  that  the  novel  was 
written  before  the  play  and  formed  its  basis.  I  do  not 
think  that  there  is  anything  in  the  title-page  or  the  pre- 
fatory matter  to  disprove  or  to  prove  this.  Structurally  the 
two  follow  much  the  same  lines.  There  are  some  differ- 
ences in  the  detail  of  incidents,  and  some  inversions  of 
order.  These  are  most  marked  in  iii-v.  Two  episodes,  a 
musical  performance  by  Pericles  at  Pentapolis  and  a  blow 
given  by  him  to  Marina  at  Mitylene,  are  fully  dealt  with 
in  the  novel,  but  only  obscurely  alluded  to  in  ii.  5. 25  and 
v,  i.  1 01,  127.  Both  belong  to  the  traditional  story.  It 
must  be  remembered  that  we  do  not  know  what  the 
reporter  of  the  play  may  have  omitted.  Verbally  the  novel 
is  much  less  close  to  the  play  than  one  'would  expect  if  the 
writer  were  merely  paraphrasing,  and  especially  if  he 
were  paraphrasing  his  own  dramatic  work.  Here  and 
there  throughout,  and  rather  more  in  i-ix  than  in  iii-v, 
there  are  small  equivalences  of  expression,  often  no 
more  than  a  single  word  or  pair  of  words,  but  enough  to 
testify  to  some  connexion.  On  the  other  hand,  the  greater 
part  of  the  play  dialogue,  even  where  it  is  striking,  is  not 
reflected  at  all  in  the  novel,  but  is  represented  by  some- 
thing much  more  commonplace.  The  novel,  again,  makes 
far  more  use  than  the  play  of  Twine,  and  reproduces  con- 

'  Cf.  EB*.  Stage,  iii.  513.  3  Md.  iii.  285. 

2  Ibid.  iii.  286. 


524  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap.  X 

siderable  passages  verbatim.  So  far  one  would  gladly 
think  that  it  stood  intermediate  between  Twine  and  the 
play,  and  that  the  dramatists,  whether  Wilkins*was  one 
of  them  or  not,  used  it  as  their  source,  and  picked  up  from 
it  a  stray  phrase  here  and  there.  The  difficulty  is  that  some 
of  the  common  phrases,  as  well  as  some  other  phrases  in 
the  novel,  read  like  blank  verse.  No  doubt  Wilkins,  like 
Shakespeare  himself  (cf.  p.  233),  might  let  his  prose  run 
into  verse  rhythms.  Some  of  the  bits  in  question  may 
be  of  this  type.  But  such  an  explanation  can  hardly  cover 
those  which  do  in  fact  occur  in  the  same  or  almost  the  same 
form  in  the  play.  One  cannot  suppose  that  two  distinct 
playwrights  followed  the  practice  of  incorporating  these. 
They  are  not  many,  but  have  to  be  accounted  for.  I  will 
give  them. 

(i)  A  gentleman  of  Tyre;  my  name  Pericles; 
My  education  been  in  arts  and  arms; 
Who,  looking  for  adventures  in  the  world, 
Was  by  the  rough  seas  reft  of  ships  and  men 
And  after  shipwreck  driven  upon  this  shore     (ii.  3.  8 1-5). 

Pericles . . .  thus  returneth  what  hee  is,  that  hee  was  a  Gentleman 
of  Tyre,  his  name  Pericles,  his  education  beene  in  Artes  and  Armes, 
who  looking  for  aduentures  in  the  world,  was  by  the  rough  and 
vnconstant  Seas,  most  vnfortunately  bereft  both  of  shippes  and  men, 
and  after  shipwrecke,  throwen  vpon  that  shoare  (Mommsen  32). 

(2)  I  came  unto  your  court  for  honour's  cause, 

And  not  to  be  a  rebel  to  her  state          (ii.  5.  61-2). 

Pericles . . .  replyed,  That . . .  euen  in  his  bosom  he  would  write  the 
lie:  affirming,  that  he  came  into  his  Court  in  search  of  honour,  and 
not  to  be  a  rebell  to  his  State  (Mommsen  39). 

(3)  Thou  art  the  rudeliest  welcome  to  this  world 

That  ever  was  princess'  child.  Happy  what  follows! 

Thou  hast  as  chiding  a  nativity, 

As  fire,  air,  water,  earth  and  heaven  can  make, 

To  herald  thee  from  the  womb: 

Even  at  the  first,  thy  loss  is  more  than  can 

Thy  portage  quit,  with  all  thou  canst  find  here: 

Now  the  good  gods  throw  their  best  eyes  upon't  (iii.  I.  30-7). 


Chap.  X  PERICLES  525 

Poore  inch  of  Nature  (quoth  he)  thou  arte  as  rudely  welcome  to  the 
worlde,  as  euer  Princesse  Babe  was,  and  hast  as  chiding  a  natiuitie, 
as  fire,  ayre,  earth,  and  water  can  affoord  thee  (Mommsen  44). 

Here  the  reporter  may  have  omitted  Toore  inch  of  Nature* 
from  the  play.  It  would  fit  well  enough  into  the  fifth  line, 
the  incompleteness  of  which  is  obscured  by  rearrangement 
in  the  Globe  text,  Sykes  thinks  that  it  might  be  Wilkins's 
phrase,  but  surely  in  its  setting  it  is  Shakespearean,  and 
there  are  analogous  uses  of  'inch'  in  Ant.  6?  Cleo.  i.  2.  59 
Wlnt.  Tale>  ii.  i.  137;  iv,  4.  460.  It  is  difficult  to  resist 
the  conviction  that,  in  these  passages  at  least,  the  novel  rests 
on  the  play,  and  on  the  play  with  Shakespeare's  contribu- 
tion in  it.  Of  this  last  point,  there  is  confirmation  ifi  the 
following: 

Her  eyelids,  cases  to  those  heavenly  jewels 

Which  Pericles  hath  lost, 

Begin  to  part  their  fringes  of  bright  gold; 

The  diamonds  of  a  most  praised  water 

Do  appear,  to  make  the  world  twice  rich.   (iii.  2.  99-103). 

Hee  perceiued  ...  the  golden  fringes  of  her  eyes  alitle  to  part 
.  .  .  lifting  vp  those  now  againe  pricelesse  diamonds  of  her  eyes 
(Mommsen  48). 

Here  the  'now  againe'  can  only  be  a  clumsy  rendering  of 
Shakespeare's  'twice  rich*.  Given  a  borrowing  of  verse 
from  the  play  in  the  examples  already  cited,  one  may 
legitimately  suspect  it  in  one  or  two  other  places.  Perhaps 
the  most  notable  are: 

(1)  I  traytour,  quoth  the  king,  that  thus  disguised,  art  stolne  into 
my  Court,  with  the  witchcraft  of  thy  actions  to  bewitch,  the  yeeld- 
ing  spirit  of  my  tender  Childe  (Mommsen  38). 

(2)  A  stragling  Theseus  borne  we  know  not  where  (Mommsen 
39)- 

(3)  But  daughter  (quoth  Simonides)  equalles  to  equalles,  good  to 
good  is  ioyned,  this  not  being  so,  the  tauine  of  your  minde  in  rash- 
nesse  kindled,  must  againe  be  quenched,  or  purchase  our  displeasure. 
And  for  you  sir  (speaking  to  prince  Pericles)  first  learne  to  know,  I 
banish  you  my  Court  (Mommsen  40). 

(4)  It  shall  become  you  still  to  be  euen  as  you  ares  a  peece  of  good- 


526  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap.  X 

ness,  the  best  wrought  vppe,  that  euer  Nature  made,  and  if  that  any 
shall  inforce  you  ill,  if  you  but  send  to  me,  I  am  your  friend 
(Mommsen  67). 

The  rhythms  of  (i)  (2)  (4)  are  not  from  the  corresponding 
passages  at  ii,  5, 49, 78 ;  iv.  6. 1 1 8-23,  and  there  is  no  pass- 
age corresponding  to  (3).  Again  we  must  keep  the  reporter 
and  his  perversions  in  mind.  It  is,  however,  conceivable  that 
the  writer  of  the  novel  was  here  quoting  a  version  of  the 
play  which  is  not  quite  ours.  A  rather  elaborate  theory 
is  required  to  reconcile  the  evidence  of  the  verse  snippets 
with  the  structural  resemblance  of  play  and  novel,  their 
general  remoteness  from  each  other  in  wording,  and  their 
increasing  divergence  in  Acts  iii-v.  And  where  all  is  dark, 
I  incline  to  find  a  solution  in  the  view  that  there  was  an 
earlier  play,  that  a  new  version  was  written  by  Shakespeare 
and  another,  and  that  the  novel  was  not  the  source  of  the 
play,  but  was  put  together  by  Wilkins,  not  directly  from 
any  dramatic  text,  but  from  reminiscences  of  both  versions, 
with  the  help  of  a  liberal  resort  to  Twine.  I  do  not  think 
it  is  inconceivable  that  Wilkins  was  Shakespeare's  colla- 
borator, although  the  textual  remoteness  of  the  novel  from 
the  play  is  rather  against  it.  But  I  see  no  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  he  had  anything  to  do  with  iii— v,  unless  he  sup- 
plied the  Gower  passages,  or  that  any  part  of  the  older 
version  survives  in  our  text.  An  analogy  for  the  complete 
Jacobean  rehandling  of  an  old  dramatic  theme  is  afforded 
by  Lear,  and  the  addition  of  scenes  to  the  old  Mucedorus 
about  1610  may  also  be  noted.  The  hypothesis  here 
adopted  is  helpful  chronologically,  because  it  enables 
Shakespeare's  work  to  be  put  late  in  1608,  instead  of 
before  Blount's  entry  in  the  previous  May.  It  would  be 
difficult  to  find  room  for  it  earlier,  since  it  must  be  later 
than  Coriolanus  and  Timon  of  Athens,  for  both  of  which  we 
seem  driven  to  1607-8.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have 
nothing  else  for  1608-9.  I  ta^e  it  that  the  old  play  had 
been  revived,  that  it  proved  sufficiently  popular  in  topic  to 
justify  a  rewriting,  and  that  Blount  meant  to  print  it,  but 
desisted  on  learning  that  rewriting  was  contemplated.  The 
reprinting  of  Twine's  story  in  1607  possibly  dates  the 


Chap.  X  PERICLES  527 

revival.  Giustinian  may  have  seen  -either  the  old  or  the 
new  version.  Little  importance,  however,  can  be  attached 
to  the  attempt  of  Graves  to  find  1 606  by  analogies,  in  i.  i  to 
the  alleged  plot  to  shoot  James  I,  and  in  i.  4  to  Gius- 
tinian's  negotiations  for  the  export  of  grain  to  Venice. 
The  incidents  in  the  play  come  from  the  traditional  story. 
Marina  need  not  be  the  Princess  Mary  (1605-7)  and  the 
success  of  Pericles  in  the  tourney  would  be  an  imperfect 
consolation  to  James  for  his  failure  against  Christian  of 
Denmark.1  Perhaps  some  hints  of  antiquity  may  be  found 
in  the  linking  of  Pericles  with  Shore*  in  the  Pimlyco  of  1609 
(App.^  B,  no.  xxxiii),  although  the  writer  has  also  a  'new 
play'  in  mind;  in  Jonson's  scoff  at  the  'mouldy  tale*  (App. 
B,  no.  xxii);  and  even  in  Dryden's  obviously  mistaken 
notion  that  Pericles  was  Shakespeare's  first  play  (App.  C, 
no.  xii).  Collier  forged  an  entry  to  suggest  a  performance 
at  the  Rose  about  1598  (App.  F,  no.  xi,  <?).  Baker  conjec- 
tured that  two  early  English  plays  might  underlie  two 
seventeenth-century  Dutch  ones  which  he  had  not  seen. 
But  the  description  of  these,  which  were  by  Pieter  Bor 
Christiaenz,  in  Smyth  35  does  not  suggest  an  English 
origin.  Some  relation  between  Twine's  Patterne  of  Payn- 
full  Adventures  and  the  Paynfull  Pilgrimage  played  at 
court  in  1567-8  has  also  been  conjectured.3  Pericles  itself 
was  revived  in  1619  and  1631  (App.  D). 

The  evolution  of  the  story  is  admirably  traced  by  Smyth. 
It  is  that  of  Apollonius  of  Tyre,  probably  of  Greek  origin, 
but  first  known  in  a  fifth-  or  sixth-century  Latin  form,  of 
which  manuscripts  are  widespread.  It  got  into  all  the 
European  tongues.  Gower  took  it  from  the  Pantheon  (c. 
1 1 86)  of  Godfrey  of  Viterbo,  and  Twine  from  the  Gesta 
Romanorum.  The  name  Pericles,  as  a  substitute  for  Apol- 
lonius, is  generally  regarded  as  derived  from  the  Pyrocles  of 
.Sidney's  Arcadia  and  not  from  the  Athenian  statesman.  But 
Smyth  points  out  (69)  that  Perillie  is  in  a  fifteenth-century 
French  version,  and  Philemon,  as  the  name  of  Cerimon's 
servant,  seems  (71)  only  to  be  paralleled  by  the  Philominus 
of  Heinrich  von  Neustadt's  fourteenth-century  Apollonius 

1  £#«.  Stage,  i.  146.  a  Ibid.  iv.  10.  3  IMd.  iv.  144, 


J 
\ 


$28  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap.  X 

von  Tyrland.  Unless  these  are  mere  coincidences,  there  may 
have  been  some  unrecorded  channel  of  transmission.  An 
Apolonius  and  Camilla  was  registered  by  John  Perrin  on 
9  October  1587.! 

IV.   THE  TWO  NOBLE  KINSMEN 

[S.R.  1634.]  8°  Aprilis  Master  John  Waterson  Entred 
for  his  Copy  vnder  the  hands  of  Sir  Henry  Herbert  and 
master  Aspley  warden  a  Tragi  Comedy  called  the  two 
noble  kinsmen  by  John  ffletcher  and  William  Shakespeare. 
vjd.  (Arber,  iv.  316). 

[Q.  1634.]  The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen  :  Presented  at  the 
Blackfriers  by  the  Kings  Maiesties  servants,  with  great 
applause:  Written  by  the  memorable  Worthies  of  their 
time; 

Mr.  John  Fletcher,  and 
M'.  William  Shakspeare. 

[Cotes's  device,  formerly  Jaggard's  (McKerrow   283)] 

Printed  at  London  by  Tho.  Cotes,  for  lohn  Waterson: 

and  are  to  be  sold  at  the  signe  of  the  Crowne  in  Pauls 

Church-yard.  1634. 

[Prologue  and  epilogue.] 

Facsimile.  J.  S.  Farmer  (1910,  T.F.T.). 

Reprint.  H.  Litdedale  (1876,  N.S.SJ. 

[S.R.  1  646.]  The  3  Ith  of  October  1  646.  Master  Moseley. 
Assigned  over  unto  him  by  vertue  of  a  note  under  the 
hand  &  scale  of  Master  Waterson  and  both  the  wardens, 
all  the  Estate,  right,  title  &  interest  which  the  said  Mr 
Waterson  hath  in  these  Playes  following  (viz*) 
The  Elder  Brother,  his  parte.  "|  ,     Mr 
Mounsieur  Thomas.  I  ST  ^ 

The  Noble  kinsman.  J  *lesher< 

(Eyre,  i.  250). 

[Moseley  advertised  the  play  in  1653  and  1654  (Greg*  Masques, 
xxvi,  xxviii),  and  was  perhaps  sdHng  Waterson's  stock.   I  cannot 
find  a  transfer  from  him  or  his  estate  to  the  F2  publishers.] 
1  Arber,  ii.  476. 


Chap.  X  THE  TWO  NOBLE  KINSMEN  529 

[F2,  1679.]    Fifty  Comedies  and  Tragedies.   Written  by 
Francis  Beaumont  and  John  Fletcher,  Gentlemen,  All  in 
one  Volume.  Published  by  the  Authors  Original  Copies, 
the  Songs  to  each  Play  being  added.    [Motto]  London, 
Printed  by  J.  Macock,  for  John  Martyn,  Henry  Herring- 
man,  Richard  Marriot,  M.D.CLXXIX. 
Modern  Editions.  W.  W.  Skeat  (1875)5  H.  Littledale  (1876-85 
N.S.S.);  W.  J.  Rolfe  (1891);  C.  H.  Herford  (1897)5  C.  F.  Tucker 
Brooke  (1908,  Sh.  Apocrypha). 

Dissertations.  W.Spalding,  A  Letter  on  Sh! 5  Authorship  ofTJf.K.(i*M  ? 
1876,  N.S.S.} ;  S.  Hickson,  The  Shares  of  Sh.  and  F.  in  Tlf.K.  (1847, 
Westminster  Review,  xcii.  59;  1874,  N.S.S.  Trans.  25*,  with  additions 
byF.  G.  Fleay  and  F.  J.Furnivall);  N.  Delius,  Die  angebliche  Sh.-F.Autor- 
schaft  des  Dramas  TJV.K.  (1878,  J.  xiii.  16 ;  Abl.  ii.  i);  R.  Boyle,  Sh. 
und  T.N.K.  (1881,  E.S.  iv.  34),  On  MassingerandTJt.K.  (1882,  N.S.S. 
Trans.  371);  L.  C.  T.  Bierfreund,  Palemon  ogArcite  (1891);  E.  H.  C. 
Oliphant,  T.N.K.  (1891,  E.S.  xv.  323),  T.N.K.  (1927,  B.F.  325);  A.  H. 
Thorndike,  TJf.K.  (1901,  Influence  of  B.  and  F.  on  Sh.  44);  W.  Y. 
Durand,  Notes  on  Richard  Edwardes  (1902,  J.G.P.iv.  348) ;  B.  Leuschner, 
V&erdas  Ferhaltniss  von  TJtf.K.  zu  Chaucers  Knightes  Tale  (1903);  O. 
Petersen,  TJf.K.  (1914,  Angtta,  xxxviii.  213);  H.  D.  Sykes,  T.N.K. 
(1916,  M.L.R.  xi.  136;  Sidelights  on  Sh.  i) ;  W.  J.  Lawrence,  New  Light 
on  T.N.K.  (1921,  July  14,  T.L.S., followed  by  correspondence);  A.  H. 
Cruickshank,  Massinger  and  TJI.K.  (1922);  H.  D.  Gray,  Beaumont  and 
T.N.K.  (1923,  P.Q.  ii.  112);  K.  Ege,  DerAnteil  Shsan  TJX.K.  (1924, 
J.  lix.  62), 

The  Q  text  is  a  good  one,  requiring  little  emendation. 
Most  of  the  prose  (ii.  2 ;  iv.  3)  is  in  capitalized  lines  of 
irregular  length,  and  occasionally  a  passage  of  verse  is 
printed  as  prose.  The  known  examples  show  some 
variants.  The  stagd-directions  are  elaborate  for  the 
spectacular  episodes.  Evidently  the  manuscript  had  been 
used  as  prompt-copy,  since  some  book-keeper's  notes, 
printed  in  roman  type  and  generally  (cf.  p.  121)  in 
the  left  margin,  are  distinguishable  from  the  italicized 
stage-directions.  Some  are  additional  stage-directions; 
others  notes  to  have  actors  and  properties  ready  in 
advance.  Thus  '2.  Hearses  ready,  with  Palamon:  and 
Arcite:  the  3.  Queenes.  Theseus:  and  his  Lordes  ready* 
(i.  3.  58)  is  for  i,  4;  '3.  Hearses  ready*  (i.  4.  26)  is 
for  i.  5;  'Chaire  and  stooles  out'  (iii.  5.  66)  is  for  iii.  5. 
3x42.1  M  m 


530  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap.X 

102.  A  book-keeper  must  have  also  added  Curtis  after 
Messengers  in  the  stage-direction  to  iv.  2.  71,  and  T. 
Tucke:  Curtis  after  Attendants  in  that  to  v,  3.  i.  The  F 
text  is  reprinted  from  Q  with  many  conjectural  alterations. 
The  clearest  indication  of  date  is  the  use  in  the  morris- 
dance  (iii.  5)  of  characters  from  one  of  the  anti-masks  in 
Beaumont's  Inner  Temple  and  Gray's  Inn  Mask  of  20 
February  1  6  1  3.1  There  may  be  a  confirmation  of  1  6  1  3  in 
Jonson,  Bartholomew  Fair  (i  614),  iv.  3  : 

Quarlous.  Well  my  word  is  out  of  the  Arcadia^  then:  Argalus. 
Win-wife.  And  mine  out  of  the  play,  P  demon. 

The  Arcadia  here  is  Sidney's.  A  Palaemon,  however,  is 
also  in  Daniel's  play  of  The  Queen's  Arcadia  (1606).  A 
parallel  between  i.  i.  1  18  and  The  Honest  Man'  $  Fortune  of 
1613,  iii.  i  ,  1  5  1  ,  is  perhaps  too  much  of  a  commonplace  to 
be  indicative.2  There  is  certainly  no  reason  to  accept  the 
suggestion  that  the  Doctor's  cures  for  love-melancholy 
(iv.  3  ;  v.  2)  come  from  Burton's  very  derivative  Anatomy 
(i  62  i),  ii.  3.  5,  The  Globe  fire  of  1  6  1  3  need  not,  of  course, 
be  the  explanation  of  prol.  30: 

If  this  play  doe  not  keepe 
A  little  dull  time  from  us,  we  perceave 
Our  losses  fall  so  thicke,  we  must  needs  leave. 

In  fact  the  prologue  is  probably  of  later  date  than  the  play, 
since  it  speaks  of  'a  writer',  although  there  are  clearly 
two.  There  was  probably  a  court  performance  about  1619 
(App.  D).  But  Littledale's  inquiry  for  a  date  at  which 
the  King's  men's  losses  fell  so  thick  as  in  1613  maY  Per~ 
haps  point  us  to  1625,  whefi  the  death  of  James  was 
followed  by  a  heavy  plague,  and  the  theatres  were  closed.3 
The  actor  names  in  the  stage-directions  point  to  a  revival 
of  about  1  625-6.  Curtis  Greville  left'the  Lady  Elizabeth's 
men  for  the  Palsgrave's  in  1622  and  was  of  the  King's  by 
ii  October  1626.  Thomas  Tuckfield  is  only  known  as 
a  hired  man  of  the  King's  in  i624.4 


,  Stage,  iii.  233.  London*  170. 

Ibid,  iil  227.  4  Murray,  i.  172,  214,  216:  Herbert 

F.  P.  Wilson,  Plague  in  Ms     74. 


Chap.  X  THE  TWO  NOBLE  KINSMEN  531 

The  categorical  ascription  of  the  play  on  its  title-page 
to  Fletcher  and  Shakespeare  is  not  much  affected  by 
Moseley's  later  treatment  of  it  as  Fletcher's.  A  'tradition* 
that  it  was  Shakespeare's,  mentioned  by  Pope,  may  only  rest 
on  the  title-page.1  Clearly  there  are  at  least  two  hands  in 
the  play.  Fletcher's  is  unmistakable  in  the  verse  of  ii.  3-6, 
iii.  3-6;  iv.  1-2;  v.  2.  Most  of  that  in  i.  1-3;  iii.  i ;  v.  i, 
3,  4  cannot  possibly  be  his.  The  short  Sec.  i.  4,  5  and  iii. 
2  may  be  a  little  more  doubtful.  Metrically,  the  non- 
Fletcherian  verse  agrees  with  that  of  Shakespeare,  in  its 
latest  stage,  and  most  precisely  with  that  of  the  scenes 
generally  ascribed  to  him  in  Henry  Fill,  and  the  con- 
verging evidence  for  the  two  plays,  with  the  slighter 
indication  for  the  lost  Cardenio  (cf.  p.  539),  all  pointing  to 
1613,  is  strong  for  some  collaboration  between  Shake- 
speare and  Fletcher  in  that  year.  Stylistic  features,  other 
than  metrical,  are  confirmatory;  the  constant  use  of  coined 
words,  of  archaistic  words,  of  vigorous  unliterary  words; 
the  characteristic  involutions  of  the  sentence-structure. 
This  is  perhaps  less  noticeable  in  Act  v  than  in  Act  i,  and 
I  have  sometimes  thought  that  a  distinction  might  be 
made.  But  probably  the  impression  of  style  in  v  is  affected 
by  the  formal  character  of  the  great  invocations.  Moreover, 
no  other  than  Shakespeare,  certainly  hot  Tourneur,  Row- 
ley, or  Chapman,  who  have  been  loosely  talked  of,  can  be 
supposed  capable  of  these  invocations,  except  possibly 
Beaumont,  and  Beaumont  is  excluded  by  the  metre.  They 
are  quite  outside  the  imaginative  range  of  Massinger, 
whom  Boyle  and  Sykes,  regardless  of  the  title-page,  would 
substitute  for  Shakespeare  on  the  ground  of  parallels. 
These,  as  in  Henry  Fill,  are  poor  evidence  for  such  a 
derivative  writer  as  Massinger;  and  even  on  their  merits 
they  are  not  so  strong  as  those  to  Shakespeare's  own  work 
collected  by  Littledale.  It  is  noticeable  that  while  these 
are  naturally  closest  to  his  late  plays,  there  are  also  several 
to  Midsummer-Night's  Dream,  associations  with  which 
the  resumed  handling  of  Theseus  may  well  have  evoked. 
Part  of  the  scepticism  as  to  Shakespeare's  presence 


M  m  2 


532  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO         Chap.  X 

rests  upon  the  inadequate  characterization,  especially 
of  Emilia  and  of  the  Gaoler's  Daughter.  But  here  it  is 
Fletcher,  rather  than  Shakespeare,  who  is  at  fault,  and 
Fletcher,  especially  if  he  was  collaborating  with  Shake- 
speare at  a  distance,  may  well  have  failed  to  hold  the  pitch. 
The  distribution  of  the  Shakespearean  matter  shows  that 
it  is  a  case  of  collaboration  and  not  of  the  completion  by 
Fletcher  of  a  Shakespearean  fragment.  In  fitting  the 
scenes  together,  Fletcher  may  possibly  have  added  a  few 
lines  to  Shakespeare's.  The  most  likely  are  i.  i .  2  5—8 ;  L  4. 
32-8 ;  v.  i .  i-i  7 ;  v.  4. 2  3-3  8 .  I  incline  to  give  i.  5  and  iii.  2 
to  Fletcher  and  i.  4  on  the  whole  to  Shakespeare.  Either 
might  have  written  the  song  in  i,  i .  But  on  these  minor 
points  there  can  be  no  certainty.  Both  Littledale  and 
Oliphant  think  that  Beaumont  might  have  helped  Fletcher 
a  little.  Oliphant  suggests  that  the  burlesque  at  the  end 
of  iii.  5  is  more  in  his  vein  than  Fletcher's,  and  of  course 
it  is  his  mask  that  is  drawn  upon.  It  is  not  clear  that  he 
was  still  writing  in  1613.  There  is  not  mucK  room  for 
him  in  the  play,  but  if  he  is  there  at  all,  the  prose  of  ii.  i 
and  iv,  3  might  be  his,  rather  than  Shakespeare's.  Either 
is  more  likely  than  Fletcher,  who  did  not  make  much  use 
of  prose.  I  do  not  find  any  evidence  of  revision. 

The  source  is,  of  course,  Chaucer's  Knightes  Tale.  An 
academic  play  ofPalamon  andArcite  by  Richard  Edwardes 
in  1566  is  only  known  by  description.1  It  had  some 
characters  and  episodes  other  than  those  of  Two  Noble 
Kinsmen.  A  Palamon  and  Arcite  was  also  produced, 
not  as  Oliphant  says  by  the  Chamberlain's,  but  by  the 
Admiral's,  in  i$94-2  Petersen  would  link  both  the  early 
plays  with  Two  Noble  Kinsmen  in  a  wonderful  and  fearful 
stage  history  involving  five  revisions. 

V.   PLAYS  ASCRIBED  IN  THE  THIRD  FOLIO 

The  four  plays  already  discussed  are  the  only  ones,  outside 
Fi,  which  can  be  seriously  thought  of  as,  in  whole  or  in 
part,  the  work  of  Shakespeare.  Philip  Chetwinde,  who 

,  iii.  3I i. 


Chap.  X  PLAYS  ASCRIBED  IN  THE  THIRD  FOLIO  533 
added  Pericles  to  the  second  issue  (cf.  p.  520)  of  the  Third 
Folio  in  1664,  accompanied  it  with  six  others.  Shake- 
speare's authorship  of  them  all  had  already  been  asserted 
or  suggested  in  Quartos,  and  in  bookseller's  lists,  which 
may,  as  Pollard,  F.Q.  162,  thinks,  have  influenced  Chet- 
winde.  The  record  of  the  Quartos  is  as  follows: 

(a)  Locrine. 

[S.R.  1594-]  xx°  die  lulij.  Thomas  Creede.  Entred  for 
his  Copie  vnder  thandes  of  the  Wardens.  The  lamentable 
Tragedie  of  Locrine,  the  eldest  sonne  of  Kinge  Brutus, 
discoursinge  the  warres  of  the  Brittans  &c  vjd.  (Arber, 
ii.  656). 

[Q.  1595.]  The  Lamentable  Tragedie  of  Locrine,  the 
eldest  sonne  of  King  Brutus,  discoursing  the  warres  of  the 
Britaines,  and  Hunnes,  with  their  discomfiture:  The 
Britaines  victorie  with  their  Accidents,  and  the  death  of 
Albanact.  No  lesse  pleasant  then  profitable.  Newly  set 
foorth,  ouerseene  and  corrected,  By  W.  S,  [Creede's 
device  (McKerrow  299)]  London  Printed  by  Thomas 
Creede.  1595* 

(£)  i  Sir  John  Oldcastk. 

[S.R.  1600.]  1 1  August!.  Thomas  Payier.  Entred  for 
his  copies  vnder  the  handes  of  master  Vicars  and  the  war- 
dens. These  iij  copies  viz The  first  parte  of  the  history 

of  the  life  of  Sir  John  Oldcastell  lord  Cobham.  (Arber, 
iii.  169). 

FOi  1600,]  The  first  part  Of  the  true  and  honorable 
historic,  of  the  life  of  Sir  John  Old-castle,  the  good  Lord 
Cobham.  As  it  hath  been  lately  acted  by  the  right  honor- 
able the  Earle  of  Notingham  Lord  high  Admirall  of  Eng- 
land his  seruants  [Simmes's  device  (McKerrow  142)] 
London  Printed  by  V.  S.  for  Thomas  Pauier,  and  are  to  be 
solde  at  his  shop  at  the  signe  of  the  Catte  and  Parrots 
neere  the  Exchange.  1600. 

TQ2.  1619,]  The  first  part  Of  the  true  &  honorable 
history,  of  the  Life  of  Sir  lohn  Old-castle,  the  good  Lord 


534  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap.  X 

Cobham.  As  it  hath  bene  lately  acted  by  the  Right 
honorable  the  Earle  of  Notingham  Lord  High  Admirall 
of  England,  his  Seruants.  Written  by  William  Shakespeare. 
[Jaggard's  device  (McKerrow  283)]  London  printed  for 
T.  P.  1600. 
[On  the  misdating,  cf.  p.  133.] 

(c)  Thomas  Lord  Cromwell. 

[S.R.  1602.]  11°  Augusti.  William  Cotton.  Entredfor 
his  Copie  vnder  thandes  of  master  Jackson  and  master 
Waterson  warden  A  booke  called  the  lyfe  and  Deathe  of 
the  Lord  Cromwell,  as  yt  was  lately  Acted  by  the  Lord 
Chamberleyn  his  servantes  vjd.  (Arber,  iii.  214). 

[Qi.  1602.]  The  True  Chronicle  Historic  of  the  whole 
life  and  death  of  Thomas  Lord  Cromwell.  As  it  hath 
beene  sundrie  times  publikely  Acted  by  the  Right  Honor- 
able the  Lord  Chamberlaine  his  Seruants.  Written  by 
W.  S.  [Richard  Read's  ( ?)  device  (McKerrow  320,  without 
initials)]  Imprinted  at  London  for  William  lones,  and  are 
to  be  solde  at  his  house  neere  Holburne  conduict,  at  the 
signe  of  the  Gunne.  1 602 . 

[S.R.  1611.]  i6toDecembris.  John  Browne.  Entredfor 
his  Copyes  by  assignement  from  William  Jones  and  vnder 
master  warden  Lownes  his  hand  . . ,  and  one  other  booke 
called,  the  lyfe  and  death  of  the  Lord  Cromwell,  by  W:  S. 
xijd.  (Arber,  iii.  474). 

[Q2.  1613.]  The  True  Chronicle  Historic  of  the  whole 
life  and  death  of  Thomas  Lord  Cromwell.  A.S  it  hath  beene 
sundry  times  publikely  Acted  by  the  Kings  Maiesties 
Seruants.  Written  by  W,  S.  [Snodham's  device  (McKerrow 
2  2  7)]  London :  Printed  by  Thomas  Snodham.  1613. 

(d}  The  London  Prodigal 

[Q.  1605.]  The  London  Prodigall.  As  it  was  plaide  by 
the  Kings  Maiesties  seruants.  By  William  Shakespeare, 
[Creede's  device  (McKerrow  299)]  London,  Printed  by 
T.  C.  for  Nathaniel  Butter,  and  are  to  be  sold  neere  S 
Austins  gate,  at  the  signe  of  the  pyde  Bull.  1 605. 


Chap.X  PLAYS  ASCRIBED  IN  THE  THIRD  FOLIO  535 
(e)  The  Puritan. 

[S.R.  1607.]  6  Augusti.  George  Elde  Entred  for  his 
copie  vnder  thandes  of  Sir  George  Bucke  knight  and  the 
wardens  a  book  called  the  comedie  of  the  Puritan  Widowe 
vjd  (Arber,  iii.  358). 

[Q.  1607.]  The  Puritaine  Or  The  Widdow  of  Watling- 
streete.  Acted  by  the  Children  of  Paules.  Written  by 
W.  S.  [Eld's  device  (McKerrow  320,  without  initials)] 
Imprinted  at  London  by  G.  Eld.  1607.  [Head-  and 
Running-titles]  The  Puritaine  Widdow. 

(/)  A  Torkshire  Tragedy. 

[S.R.  1608.]  2do  die  Maij.  Master  Pavyer  Entered  for 
his  Copie  vnder  the  handes  of  master  Wilson  and  master 
Warden  Seton  A  booke  Called  A  Yorkshire  Tragedy 
written  by  Wylliam  Shakespere  vjd.  (Arber,  iii.  377). 
[Qi.  1608.]  A  -Yorkshire  Tragedy.  Not  so  New  as 
Lamentable  and  true.  Acted  by  his  Maiesties  Players 
at  the  Globe.  Written  by  W.  Shakspeare.  [Bradock's 
device  (McKerrow  280)]  At  London  Printed  by  R.  B.  for 
Thomas  Pauier  and  are  to  bee  sold  at  his  shop  on  Cornhill, 
neere  to  the  exchange.  1608.  \Head-title\  All's  One,  Or, 
One  Of  The  Four  Plaies  In  One,  Called  A  York-shire 
Tragedy  As  It  Was  Plaid  by  the  Kings  Maiesties  Haiers. 
[Running-title]  All's  One,  or  A  Yorkshire  Tragedy. 
[02.  I  £19.]  A  Yorkshire  Tragedie.  Not  so  New,  as 
Lamentable  and  True.  Written  by  W.  Shakespeare. 
(Jaggard'sdevice(McKerrow283)]  Printed  forT.P.  1619: 
[One  of  the  Jaggard  reprints;  cf.  p.  133.]  •;  ;  '• 

These  six  plays  are  conveniently  reprinted  in  C,  F;  Tucker 
Brooke,  The  Shakespeare  Apocrypha  (1908).  I  will  not 
repeat  my  notices  of  them  from  Eliz.  Stage,  m.  306;  iv. 
8,  26,  27,  41,  54.  The  ascriptions  now  receive  no  critical 
support,  except  that  Ward,  ii.  23:,  finds  Shakespeare  s 
hand  in  a  few  passages  of  A  Torhhire  Tragedy.  I  do  not 
concur.  This  is  claimed  as  Shakespeare  s  throughout 
its  bibliographical  history.  But  Paviers  name  does 
not  inspire  confidence  (cf.  p.  135).  ™&  even  lf 


536  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap.  X 

Henry  IF  was  sometimes  (cf.  p.  382)  called  Sir 
John  Oldcastle,  it  can  hardly  have  been  through  a  legiti- 
mate confusion  that  he  allowed  a  second  edition  of  the 
Admiral's  play  by  Drayton  and  others  to  be  reprinted  with 
A  Torkshire  Tragedy  as  Shakespeare's  in  Jaggard's  enter- 
prise of  1619.  Nor  does  anything  we  know  (cf.  pp.  133, 
147)  of  Nathaniel  Butter  encourage  belief  in  his  bona  fides, 
when  he  printed  The  London  Prodigal  without  registration, 
In  these  three  cases  Shakespeare's  name  was  used  in  full. 
A  charitable  construction  would  find  in  the  W.  S.  of  The 
Puritan,  again  not  even  a  Chamberlain's  play,  and  of  Thomas 
Lord  Cromwell  some  other  writer  than  Shakespeare;  a 
Wentworthor  more  dubious  William  Smith,1  or  in  the  case 
of  Thomas  Lord  Cromwell  William  Sly.  But  it  looks  as  if 
Shakespeare's  reputation  had  'publicity'  value.  The  play- 
lists  of  Archer  (1656)  and  Kirkman  (1661,  1671)  expand 
both  sets  of  initials  into  his  name  (Greg,  Masques,  Ix,  c). 
The  W.  S.  of  Locrine  stands  on  a  different  footing.  Here 
the  only  claim  is  that  the  play  was  'newly  set  foorth,  ouer- 
seene  and  corrected'  by  him.  I  must  add  to  Eliz.  Stage, 
iv.  26,  that  the  example  with  a  marginal  note  by  Sir  George 
Buck,  there  discredited,  exists,  and  is  now  in  the  possession 
of  Mr.  A.  S.  W.  Rosenbach.  It  is  recorded  in  the  cata- 
logues of  E.  D.  Church  (1909)  and  J.  L.  Clawson  (1924), 
and  attention  was  called  to  it  by  T.  S.  Graves  in  T.L.S. 
for  8  January  1925.  A  facsimile  is  given  by  S,  A. 
Tannenbaum,  Sh.  Forgeries,  77,  79,  94.  Greg  would  read 
the  note,  which  is  slightly  clipped  at  the  edge: 

Char.  Tilney  wrot<e  a> 
Tragedy  of  this  mattr  <wch> 
hee  named  Estrild:  <&  wch> 
I  think  is  this,   it  was  <lost?> 
by  his  death.  &  now(?)  <some> 
fellow  hath  published  <it> 
I  made  dube  shewes  for  it. 
wch  I  yet  have.     G.  B<  > 

Tannenbaum  thinks  this  a  forgery.    But  according  to 
Greg  it  is  probably  genuine,  and  in  the  rough  scribble  used 

1  ElJz.  Stage,  iii.  493. 


Chap.  X  PLAYS  ASCRIBED  IN  THE  THIRD  FOLIO  537 
by  Buck  for  his  annotations  on  Barnavelt.*  The  last 
two  lines  were  inserted  after  signature.  The  play  might 
well,  if  not  written  for  the  public  stage,  be  as  early  as 
Tilney's  death  in  September  1586,  and  it  has  clearly  been 
'ouerseene  and  corrected'  before  publication,  at  least  to  the 
extent  of  inserting  a  reference  to  Elizabeth's  thirty-eighth 
regnal  year,  ending  on  16  November  1596.  If  the  author 
was  dead,  it  is  not  inconceivable  that  Shakespeare  or  some 
other  W.  S.  may  have  been  asked  to  'oversee*  the  printing. 

VI.    OTHER  ASCRIBED  PLAYS      . 

Chetwinde  did  not  take  into  F3  all  the  plays  which  had 
been  ascribed  to  Shakespeare  on  title-pages.  As  he  had 
King  John,  he  was  not  likely  also  to  print  The  Troublesome 
Reign,  to  Q2  (1611)  of  which  John  Helme  had  added 
'Written  by  W.  Sh.'.2  Perhaps  he  could  not  obtain  Two 
Noble  Kinsmen  or  the  following: — 
[Q.  1662.]  The  Birth  Of  Merlin:  Or,  The  Childehath 
Found  his  Father,  As  it  hath  been  several  times  Acted 
with  great  Applause.  Written  by  William  Shakespear, 
and  William  Rowley.  Tho.  Johnson  for  Francis  Kirkman 
and  Henry  Marsh.  1 662. 

Rowley  is  generally  accepted  as  author  or  reviser,3  and 
although  Oliphant,  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  410,  claims  to 
detect  'one  or  two  lines  that  seem  of  a  Shakespearean 
coinage',  the  suggestion  need  not  be  taken  seriously. 

If  Chetwinde  had  recourse  to  the  booksellers'  play-lists,* 
he  did  not  use  the  anonymous  Edward  III,  Edward  IF, 
i  Jeronimo,  Leir,  Merry  Devil  of  Edmonton,  and  Muce- 
dorus,  or  the  Beaumont  and  Fletcher  Chances,  or  Chettle's 
Hoffman,  or  Kyd's  Spanish  Tragedy,  or  Marlowe's  Edward 
II,  or  Massinger's  Roman  Actor,  or  Middleton's  Trick  to 
Catch  the  Old  One,  or  Peele's  Arraignment  of  Paris  \  all 
of  which  were  attributed  to  Shakespeare  either  in  that  of 
Richard  Rogers  and  William  Ley  (1656)  or  in  that  of 
Edward  Archer  (1656),  or  in  those  of  Francis  Kirkman 

1  Eng.  Lit.  Autographs,  I.  xxx,  and         3  Elix.  Stage,  iii.  474. 
RJ5.S,  v.  351.  a  Cf.  p.  364.  4  Greg,  Masques,  xli,  sqq. 


538  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap.  X 

(1661,1671),  or  in  more  than  one  of  these.  The  Merry 
Devil  of  Edmonton,  although  it  had  been  in  print  since 
1608,  was  registered  as  Shakespeare's  by  Humphrey 
Moseley  on  9  September  1653.  No  edition  from  him  is 
extant.  Examples  of  this  play,  and  of  Mucedorus  and  the 
anonymous  Fair  Em,  now  separately  preserved  in  the 
British  Museum,  were  once  bound  up  together  in  the 
library  of  Charles  II,  and  lettered  'Shakespeare,  Vol.  I'.1 
Speculative  .criticism  has  occasionally  attempted  to  find 
Shakespeare's  hand  in  these  three  plays,  or  parts  of  them, 
and  in  others,  particularly  Arden  ofFaversham,  selected  by 
conjecture.  But  these  views  now  receive  little  support,  and 
deserve  none.  Moseley,  alone  or  in  co-operation  with 
Humphrey  Robinson,  was  active  in  collecting  plays  during 
the  Commonwealth.  His  more  important  entries  are 
printed  in  Greg's  Bakings  of  Betsy.2  Many  never  got  into 
print,  and  are  now  lost.  At  the  Restoration  he  seems  to 
have  claimed  the  acting  rights  for  his  collection.3  Among 
the  lost  plays  which  he  registered  on  9  September  1 6  5  3^  are 

The  History  of  Cardennio,  by  Mr.  Fletcher.  &  Shakespeare, 
and 

Henry  ye.  first,  &  Hen:  ye  2d.  by  Shakespeare,  &  Dauenport. 

Others  of  29  June  i6oos  include: 

The  History  of  King  Stephen. "] 
Duke  Humphrey,  a  Tragedy.  I  by  Will: 
Iphis  &  lantha,  or  a  marriage   |  Shakespeare, 
without  a  man,  a  Comedy.  J 

John  Warburton  (1682-1759)  left  a  list  of  play-manu- 
scripts, most  accurately  printed  from  Lansdowne  MS.  807 
by  Greg,6  which  he  says  were  'unluckely  burnd  or  put 
under  Pye  bottoms*  by  a  servant,  after  he  had  been  many 
years  collecting  them.  Here  recur,  among  many  other  of 
Moseley's  titles, 

Henry  ye  ist  by  Will.  Shakespear  &  Rob.  Davenport. 
Duke  Humphery  Will.  Shakespear. 

*  Var.  ii.  6825  Lee  264.  4  Eyre,  i.  428. 

a  3  Library,  ii.  225.  s  Ibid.  ii.  271. 

3  Herbert  90.  *  3  Library,  ii.  230. 


Chap.  X  OTHER  ASCRIBED  PLAYS  539 

The  list  also  has — 

APlaybyWillShakespear. 

This  last  entry  may  be  the  source  of  the  attribution  of 
The  Second  Maiden's  Tragedy  (cf.  p.  109)  to  Shakespeare, 
in  a  writing  later  than  Warburton's  time.  That  play  is  a 
survivor  from  his  collection,  but  his  list  assigns  it  to  Chap- 
man. Greg  is  inclined  to  doubt  whether  Warburton  really 
ever  had  the  bulk  of  Moseley's  unprinted  plays,  and 
thinks  that  he  may  have  forgotten  the  nature  of  a  list  of 
titles  which  he  had  compiled  from  the  Stationers'  Register. 
However  this  may  be,  nothing  further  is  known  of  King 
Stephen,  Duke  Humphrey  (a  subject,  one  would  think, 
sufficiently  treated  in  Henry  77),  or  Iphis  and  lantha.  Ob- 
viously no  reliance  can  be  placed  on  Moseley.  Robert 
Davenport's  History  of  Henry  the  First  was  licensed 
(Herbert  27)  for  performance  by  the  King's  men  on  10 
April  1624.  An  Iphis  by  Henry  Bellamy  (c.  i623)survives 
in  MS.  (Hazlitt,  Manual  1 16). 

Cardennio  is  another  matter.  A  play  of  Cardenno  or 
Cardenna  was  given  by  the  King's  men  at  court  in  the 
winter  of  1612-13,  and  again  on  8  June  1613.*  The 
source  was  probably  the  story  of  Cardenio  and  Lucinda, 
as  given  in  Thomas  Shelton's  translation  (1612,  S.R. 
19  January  161 1)  of  Don  Quixote;  and  this,  although  with 
altered  names,  was  in  fact  the  source  of  Double  Falsehood, 
produced  at  Drury  Lane  on  13  December  1727  by  Lewis 
Theobald  as  an  adaptation  from  Shakespeare.  The 
career  of  Theobald  may  be  studied  in  J.  C.  Collins,  The 
Porson  of  Shakespearean  Criticism;2  T.  R.Lounsbury,  The 
First  Editors  of  Shakespeare  (1906);  R.  F.  Jones,  Lewis 
Theobald:  His  Contribution  to  English  Scholarship  (1919); 
E.  B.  Koster,  Lewis  Theobald.*  A  not  very  successful 
dramatist,  he  had  already  adapted  Richard II  in  1 7 1 9.  His 
power  as  a  textual  scholar  had  been  shown  in  his  Shake- 
speare Restored  (1726)  and  he  had  made  enemies  by  his 
criticism  of  Pope's  edition  of  the  plays.  His  own  was  to 
follow  in  1734.  Doubts  were  thrown  upon  the  bona  fides 

1  Eliz.  Stage,  iv.  128,  180.  »  1922,  English  Studies,  iv.  20,  49. 

*  1895,  Essays  and  Studies,  263. 


540  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO       Chap  X 

of  Double  Falsehood.  It  was  printed  in  1728  with  the 
following  title-page: 

Double  Falshood;  Or,  The  Distrest  Lovers.  A  Play,  As  it  is  Acted 
at  the  Theatre-Royal  in  Drury-Lane.  Written  Originally  by  W. 
Shakespeare;  And  now  Revised  and  Adapted  to  the  Stage  By  Mr. 
Theobald,  the  Author  of  Shakespeare  Restor'd.  Quodoptanti  Divum 
promittere  nemo  Auderet,  volvenda  Dies,  en!  attulit  ultra  Virg. 
London:  Printed  by  J.  Watts,  at  the  Printing-Office  in  Wild-Court 
near  Lincolns-Inn  Fields.  MDCCXXVIII. 

A  preface  contained  the  following  statement. 

It  has  been  alledg'd  as  incredible,  that  such  a  Curiosity  should  be 
stifled  and  lost  to  the  World  for  above  a  Century.  To  This  my 
Answer  is  short;  that  tho'  it  never  till  now  made  its  Appearance  on 
the  Stage,  yet  one  of  the  Manuscript  Copies,  which  I  have,  is  of 
above  Sixty  Years  Standing,  in  the  Handwriting  of  Mr.  Downey 
the  famous  Old  Prompter;  and,  as  I  am  credibly  inform'd,  was 
early  in  the  Possession  of  the  celebrated  Mr.  Betterton^  and  by  Him 
design'd  to  have  been  usher'd  into  the  World.  What  Accident  pre- 
vented This  Purpose  of  his,  I  do  not  pretend  to  know:  Or  thro* 
what  hands  it  had  successively  pass'd  before  that  Period  of  Time. 
There  is  a  Tradition  (which  I  have  from  the  Noble  Person,  who 
supply'd  me  with  One  of  my  Copies)  that  it  was  given  by  our  Author, 
as  a  Present  of  Value,  to  a  Natural  Daughter  of  his,  for  whose  Sake 
he  wrote  it,  in  the  Time  of  his  Retirement  from  the  Stage.  Two 
other  Copies  I  have  (one  of  which  I  was  glad  to  purchase  at  a  very 
good  Rate),  which  may  not,  perhaps,  be  quite  so  old  as  the  Former; 
but  One  of  Them  is  much  more  perfect,  and  has  fewer  Flaws  and 
Interruptions  in  the  Sense . . .  Others  again,  to  depreciate  the  Affair, 
as  they  thought,  have  been  pleased  to  urge,  that  tho'  the  Play  may 
have  some  resemblances  of  Shakespeare^  yet  the  Colouring^  Diction^ 
and  Characters  come  nearer  to  the  Style  and  Manner  of  Fletcher. 
This,  I  think,  is  far  from  deserving  any  Answer. 

The  explanation  did  not  quell  scepticism;  and  while  some 
students  have  been  content  to  take  the  play  as  of  old,  but 
non-Shakespearean  origin,  others  have  treated  it  as  a 
fabrication,  for  which  the  phrase  'ironical  mystification* 
seems  inadequate.1  Recent  studies  by  G.  Bradford,  The 
History  of  Cardenio,  by  Mr.  Fletcher  and  Shakespeare* 
R.  Schevill,  Theobald's  Double  Falsehood*  W.  Graham,  The 

1  Lee  439.  «  1910,  M.L.N.  xxv.  51.  3  191  x,  M.P.  k.  269. 


Chap.  X  OTHER  ASCRIBED  PLAYS  541 

Cardenio-Double  Falsehood  Problem*  E.  H,  C.  Oliphant, 
Double  Falsehood:  Shakespeare^  Fletcher  and  Theobald* 
show  on  balance  a  tendency  to  rehabilitate  the  theory  of 
Shakespearean  authorship  at  least  in  part,  which  is  most 
clearly  expressed  by  Oliphant  in  his  Beaumont  and  Fletcher 
(i  927),  282.  He  finds,  much  overlaid  by  Theobald's,  two 
original  hands,  with  habits  as  regards  metrical  variation, 
which  differ  alike  from  each  other's  and  from  those  of 
Theobald  in  his  admitted  plays.  One  of  these  he  takes  to 
be  undisputably  Fletcher's,  and  the  other,  'a  firmer, 
stronger  hand',  he  accepts  as  Shakespeare's.  He  finds  it  in 
i.  I,  2;  ii.  I,  2,  3;  iii.  I,  2;  iv.  I ;  v.  2,  but  only  free  from 
Theobaldian  admixture  in  parts  of  iv.  i  and  v.  2.  The 
view  is  founded  partly  on  thoughts  and  phrases  which 
seem  to  him  Shakespearean,  partly  on  the  statement  of 
Moseley,  partly  on  the  evidence  for  other  collaboration 
of  Fletcher  and  Shakespeare  in  1613,  when  Cardenio, 
which  he  supposes  to  be  the  original  play,  appeared. 
He  admits  that  the  divergence  of  metrical  habit 
between  his  two  hands  does  not  correspond  very  closely 
to  that  between  the  parts  ascribed  to  Shakespeare  and 
Fletcher  respectively  in  Henry  VIII  and  Two  Noble 
Kinsmen,  but  this  he  ascribes  to  the  levelling  effect  of 
Theobald's  adaptation.  I  do  not  myself  think  that  much 
can  be  made  of  the  metrical  evidence  in  such  conditions. 
It  is,  of  course,  most  unlikely  that  Theobald  knew  anything 
of  the  Cardenio  record,  and  to  some  extent,  therefore,  that 
supports  his  story.  Similarly,  he  cannot  have  known  of 
Moseley's  entry,  since  he  repudiates  Fletcher.  There  are 
many  queer  points  about  Theobald's  own  account  of  the 
matter.  One  can  hardly  find  a  support  for  the  tradition  of 
the  natural  daughter  in  Rowe's  unexplained  statement 
(cf.  App.  C,  no.  xxv)  that  Shakespeare  left  three  daughters ; 
and  indeed  it  is  absurd,  not  so  much  because  of  any  great 
improbability  in  Shakespeare's  having  a  natural  daughter, 
as  because  he  did  not  write  his  plays  under  conditions 
which  left  him  any  property  in  them  to  transmit,  and  in 
any  case  a  play  would  have  been  an  inadequate  provision 

i  1916,  M.P.  xiv.  269,  568.  »  1919*  »  X-Q- 


542  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO     Chap.  X 

for  the  poor  girl.  It  is  odd  that  nobody  else  appears  to 
have  seen  the  three  (or  was  it  four?)  manuscripts  which 
Theobald  claimed  to  possess,  and  that  they  should  all  have 
disappeared  at  or  before  his  death.  There  is  no  item  which 
looks  at  all  like  them  in  his  sale  catalogue  of  23  October 
1 744.  It  is  odd  that,  if  Betterton  contemplated  a  produc- 
tion, there  should  be  no  signs  of  the  play  in  Restoration 
theatrical  records  or  in  the  writings  of  Downes.  It  is 
perhaps  oddest  of  all  that  Theobald,  as  a  Shakespearean 
scholar,  although  he  still  asserted  the  poet's  authorship  in 
his  edition  of  1734  (iv,  287),  made  no  attempt  to  publish 
the  unadapted  text.  But,  on  the  whole,  with  the  Gardenia 
record  and  Moseley's  statement  to  go  upon,  it  seems  to 
me  less  likely  that  Theobald  was  responsible  for  a  fabrica- 
tion, than  that  he  had  an  old  play  of  some  sort  and  a  stage 
tradition  about  it  varying  from  Moseley's  own.  It  does 
not  follow  that  Shakespeare  had  anything  to  do  with  the 
play.  I  cannot  share  Oliphant's  confidence  in  Moseley  on 
this  point.  The  play  itself,  as  it  stands,  is  a  very  poor  one. 
And  while  I  can  see  traces  that  may  well  be  Fletcher's,  I 
cannot  find  a  single  passage  which  compels  a  belief  in 
Shakespeare.  Here  and  there  are  lines  which  might  be  his 
in  no  inspired  mood.  But  what  possible  criterion  can  dis- 
tinguish, through  the  veil  of  adaptation,  second-  or  third- 
rate  work  of  Shakespeare  from  that  of  a  contemporary  dis- 
ciple, or  even  from  what  Theobald  himself,  with  his  mind 
steeped  in  Shakespeare,  might  write.  I  will  not  go  into 
the  possibility  of  alternatives,  Malone  seems  to  have 
thought  of  Massinger,  Farmer  of  Shirley.  Oliphant  him- 
self hints  at  Beaumont. 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS 

[A  full  treatment  of  the  problems  raised  by  Shakespeare's  non-dramatic 
writings  does  not  fall  within  the  scope  of  this  work.  I  have  confined  myself 
in  the  main  to  points  bearing  on  the  biography  and  the  plays.  Fuller 
bibliographical  data  will  be  found  in  H.  Farr,  Notes  on  Shakespeare's 
Printers  and  Publishers  (1923,  4  Library,  iii.  225),  R.  Sachs,  Shakespeare* 
Gedickte  (1890,  J.  xxv.  132),  and  for  the  Sonnets  in  the  editions  of 
Dowden  and  Alden.] 

I.   VENUS  AND  ADONIS 

[S.R.  1593.]  xyiii0  Aprilis.  Richard  Feild  Assigned  ouer 
to  master  Harrison  senior  25  Junii  1594.  Entred  for  his 
copie  under  thandes  of  the  Archbisshop  of  Canterbury  and 
master  warden  Stirrop,  a  booke  intituled,  Venus  and 
Adonis,  vjd  S.  (Arber,  ii.  630). 

[Q  i.  1593*]  [Ornament]  Venus  and  Adonis  Vilia  miretur 
vulgus :  mihi  flauus  Apollo  Pocula  Castalia  plena  ministret 
aqua.  [Field's  device  (McKerrow  192)]  London  Im- 
printed by  Richard  Field,  and  are  to  be  sold  at  the  signe 
of  the  white  Greyhound  in  Paules  Church-yard.  1593. 
[A  2  has 

To  the  Right  Honorable  Henrie  Wriothesley,  Earle  of 
Southampton,  and  Baron  of  Titchfield. 
Right  Honourable,  I  know  not  how  I  shall  offend  in 
dedicating  my  vnpolisht  lines  to  your  Lordship,  nor  how 
the  worlde  will  censure  mee  for  choosing  so  strong  a 

6oppe  to  support  so  weake  a  burthen,  onelye  if  your 
onour  seeme  but  pleased,  I  account  my  selfe  highly 
F  raised,  and  vowe  to  take  aduantage  of  all  idle  houres,  till 
haue  honoured  you  with  some  grauer  labour.  But  if  the 
first  heire  of  my  inuention  proue  deformed,  I  shall  be 
sorie  it  had  so  noble  a  god-father:  and  neuer  after  eare  so 
barren  a  land,  for  feare  it  yeeld  me  still  so  bad  a  haruest, 
I  leaue  it  to  your  Honourable  suruey,  and  your  Honor  to 


544  THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS  Chap.  XI 

your  hearts  content  which  I  wish  may  alwaies  answere 
your  owne  wish,  and  the  worlds  hopefull  expectation. 
Your  Honors  in  all  dutie, 

William  Shakespeare.] 

Facsimiles.  W.  Griggs  (1886,  Sh.  Q.  xii,  ed.  A.  Symons);  Clarendon 
Press  (1905,  ed.  S.  Lee). 

[Q2.  1594.]  R.  Field. 

[S.R.  1594,  June  25.]  Transfer  to  John  Harrison  (Arber, 

ii.  655). 

[Octavo  i.  1595?]  R-  Field  for  J.  Harrison?  [fragment]. 

[O2.  1596.]  Field  for  Harrison, 

[S.R.    15963   June   25.]    Transfer  to  William   Leake 
(Arber,  iii.  65). 

[°3-  T599-]  (Peter  Short)  for  Leake. 

Type-Facsimile.  C.  Edmonds  (1870). 

[04.  1599.]  (Richard  Bradocke)  for  Leake. 

[05.  1602  ?]  (Bradocke  for  Leake}. 

[T.p.  missing.] 

[O6.  1602.]  (Robert  Raworth)  for  Leake. 
[Oy.  1602.]  (Humphrey  Lownes)  for  Leake. 

[O8.  1 602.]  for  Leake. 
[T.p.  only  known.] 

[S.R.  1617,  Feb.  1 6.]  Transfer  to  William  Barrett  (Arber, 
iii.  603). 

[Og.  1617,]  (William  Stansby)  for  Barrett. 
[Five  other  editions  were  printed  before  1640,  including  one  at 
Edinburgh  in  1627.  H.  Farr,  who  identified  the  unnamed  printers 
in^E  Library,  iii.  225,  called  attention  to  the  apparent  absence  of 
editions  between  1602  and  1617,  and  suggested  that  Venus  and 
Adonis  was  in  disfavour  as  licentious,  and  that  as  a  result  some  of  the 
editions  dated  in  1602  were  really  printed  later  with  unaltered 
dates.  Raworth  in  fact  only  took  up  his  freedom  as  a  stationer  in 
1606  and  ceased  printing  in  1608.  According  to  one  statement  in 
the  notes  on  London  printing  collected  by  Sir  John  Lambe  in  1 635 
he  was  'supprest  for  printing  another's  copy';  according  to  another 
he  'forfeited  for  Venus  and  Adonis'.  Lambe  calls  him  'an  Arrant 


Chap.  XI  VENUS  AND  ADONIS  545 

Knave'  (Arber,  iii.  701,  7035  iv.  528).    I  do  not  see  any  very  clear 
evidence  here  of  a  belated  treatmentof  K»«^7»^^fl»waslicentious.] 


. 

Modern  Editions.  G.  Wyndham  (i  898)5  C.  K.  Pooler  (1911,  1927, 
Arden}\  A.  Feuillerat  (1927,  Yale). 

Dissertations.  J.  P.  Reardon,  8Jk.'s  7ji.  and  Lodge's  Sci/Ja's  Metamorphosis 
(i  847,  8k.  Soc.  Papers,  iii.  143);  A.  Morgan,  Vji.  a  Study  of  Warwickshire 
Dialect  (1885,  1900);  A.  Wuerzner,  Die  Orthographie  derersten  Q  Aus- 
gabe  von  7ji.  und  L.  (1887);  M.Dfirnhofer,  SJb  7ji.  im  7erhaltnis  zu 
Qvids  Metamorpkosen  und  Constables  Schafergcsang  (1890)  ;  G.  Sarrazin, 
Die  Abfassungszeit  von  Bhs-7.A.  (i  894,  E.S.  xix.  352);  W.  Marschall,  Sis 
Orthographic  (i  927,  Anglia9  li.  307). 

A  fancy  that  Shakespeare  came  from  Stratford-on-Avon 
with  Venus  and  Adonis  in  his  pocket  still  lingers,  and  rests 
mainly  on  the  abundance  of  rural  imagery  in  the  poem, 
This  is,  of  course,  readily  to  be  paralleled  in  Lucrece  and 
the  earlier  plays,  and  indeed  throughout  the  work  of  a 
writer,  whose  imagination,  while  it  assimilated  town  life, 
never  became  oblivious  of  the  country.  It  is  more  natural 
to  refer  Venus  and  Adonis  to  the  'idle  hours'  of  its  epistle, 
which  the  plague  year  of  1592  would  afford.  The  writer 
is  in  the  full  literary  tide  of  Renaissance  narrative  poetry 
initiated  by  Spenser,  and  even  if  Marlowe's  Hero  and 
Leander  was  not  yet  known  to  him,  not  improbably  owed 
at  least  his  metre  to  Thomas  Lodge's  Sdllaes  Meta- 
morphosis (1589).  In  calling  Venus  and  Adonis  'the  first 
heir  of  my  inuention',  he  need  mean  no  more  than  that 
it  was  his  first  published  work.  No  inference  can  reason- 
ably be  drawn  as  to  whether  he  had  or  had  not  previously 
written  for  'the  stage.  Lee  142,  however,  finds  in  these 
words  'reason  to  believe  that  the  first  draft  lay  in  the 
author's  desk  through  four  or  five  summers  and  under- 
went some  retouching  before  it  emerged  from  the  press  in 
its  final  shape'. 

II.   THE  RAPE  OF  LUCRECE 

[S.R.  1594.]  9Maij  Master  Harrison  Senior  Entred  for  Ids 
copie  vnder  thand  of  Master  Cawood  Warden,  a  booke 
intituled  the  Ravyshement  of  Lucrece  vid  C  (Arber,  ii. 
648). 

3X42.1  N  n 


546  THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS  Chap.  XI 

[Q.  1594.]  [Ornament]  Lucrece  [Field's  device  (Mc- 
Kerrow  222)]  London.  Printed  by  Richard  Field,  for 
lohn  Harrison,  and  are  to  be  sold  at  the  signe  of  the  white 
Greyhound  in  Paules  Churh-yard  (sic).  1594.  [Head- 
and  Running-titles]  The  Rape  Of  Lucrece. 

[A  2  has 

To  the  Right  Honourable,  Henry  Wriothesley,  Earle 
of  Southhampton,  and  Baron  of  Titchfield. 
The  loue  I  dedicate  to  your  Lordship  is  without  end: 
wherof  this  Pamphlet  without  beginning  is  but  a  super- 
fluous Moity.  The  warrant  I  haue  of  your  Honourable 
disposition,  not  the  worth  of  my  vntutored  Lines  makes 
it  assured  of  acceptance.  What  I  haue  done  is  yours,  what 
I  haue  to  doe  is  yours,  being  part  in  all  I  haue,  deuoted 
yours.  Were  my  worth  greater,  my  duety  would  shew 
greater,  meane  time,  as  it  is,  it  is  bound  to  your  Lordship; 
To  whom  I  wish  long  life  still  lengthned  with  all 
happinesse. 

Your  Lordships  in  all  duety. 
William  Shakespeare.] 

Facsimiles.  C.  Praetorius  (1886,  Sh.  Q.  xxxv,  ed.  F.  J.  Furnivall); 
Clarendon  Press  (1905,  ed.  S.  Lee). 

[Octavo  i.  1598.]  P(eter)  S(hort)  for  Harrison, 
[O2.  1600.]  'London,'  I(ohn)  H<arrison>  for  Harrison. 
[03.1600.]  'London/  I(ohn)  H<arrison)  for  Harrison. 
[04.  1607.]  N(icholas)  O(kes)  for  Harrison. 

[S.R.  16-14,  March  i.]  Transfer  to  Roger  Jackson  (Arber, 
iii.542). 


1616.]  T{homas)  S(nodham)  for  Jackson. 
[Two  other  editions  were  printed  before  1  640.] 

Modern  Editions.    G.  Wyndham  (1898)5  C.  K.  Pooler 
1927,  jfrden). 

Dissertations.  A.  Wuerzner,  Die  Orthographic  der  ersttn  Q  Ausgabe  w» 

%?•<£*  k  £18A  W'  Ewi&"  SAs  Z"  <J*99,  Anglia.  xxii  i,  343,  393); 
W.  MarschaU,  SJb  Orthographic  (1927,  Angha,  li.  307). 

Lucrece  may  reasonably  be  taken  to  be  the  'graver  labour' 


Chap.  XI  THE  RAPE  OF  LUCRECE  547 

of  'idle  hours'  promised  to  Lord  Southampton  in  the 
epistle  to  Venus  and  Adonis  and  can  safely  be  dated  in 

1593-4- 

III.   THE  PASSIONATE  PILGRIM 

[Octavo  i.  1599-]    The  Passionate  Pilgrime.    By  W. 

Shakespeare.     [Ornament]     At   London    Printed    (by 

Thomas  Judson)  for  W.  laggard,  and  are  to  be  sold  by 

W.  Leake,  at  the  Greyhound  in  Paules  Churchyard.  1599. 

[Second  title  on  C  3]  Sonnets  To  sundry  notes  of  Musicke. 

[Same  imprint]. 

Facsimile.  W.  Griggs  (1883,  Sh.  Q.  x,  ed.  E.  Dowden);  Clarendon 

Press  (1905,  ed.  S.  Lee). 

[O2.  ?  date.]    A  fragment,  bound  up  with  one  of  Oi  in 

the  Folger  collection,  may  belong  to  a  second  edition. 

[03.  1612.]  The  Passionate  Pilgrime  Or  Certaine 
-Amorous  Sonnets,  betweene  Venus  and  Adonis,  newly 
corrected  and  augmented.  By  W.  Shakespeare.  The 
third  Edition.  Where-unto  is  newly  added  two  Loue- 
Epistles,  the  first  from  Paris  to  Hellen,  and  Hellens 
answere  backe  againe  to  Paris.  Printed  by  W.  laggard. 
1612. 

[The  Bodleian  copy  (Malone  328)  contains  two  tps.,  one  of  which 
omits  the  ascription  to  Shakespeare.] 
Modern  Edition.  C.  K.  Pooler  (1911,  1927,  Arderi). 
Dissertations.  A.  Hoehner,  Shs  P.P.  (1867);  J.  O.  HalKweU-Phillipps, 
The  P.P.  (1890,  Outlines,  i.  401);  E.  P.  Kuhl,  8k.  and  the  P.P.  (1919, 
M.LJI.  xxxiv,  313). 

There  are  twenty  short  poems  in  The  Passionate  Pilgrim 
since  those  usually  numbered  as  xiv  and  xv  are  con- 
tinuous. The  double  title  might  suggest  an  intention  to 
attribute  i-xv  but  not  xvi-xxi  to  Shakespeare.  In  fact 
there  is  a  little  of  his  work  in  both  sections;  i  and  11  are 
versions  of  Sonnets  cxxxviii  and  cxliv;  iii,  v,  and  xvn  are  the 
poetic  missives  of  Lovis  Lab.  Lost,  iv.  2.  108-22;  3.  60- 
77,  101-20.  There  are  textual  variants,  and  those  in  i  are 
so  considerable  as  to  indicate  either  a  different  form  or  a 
loose  memorization.  It  is  very  doubtful  whether  any  of  the 


548  THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS  Chap.  XI 

other  items  are  by  Shakespeare.    Richard  Barnfield's 
Poems  in  Divers  Humours  (1598)  had  already  included  yjii 
and  xxi,  and  xviii  is  assigned  to  the  same  Ignoto  as  xxi  in 
England's  Helicon  (1600).   Part  of  xviii  had  appeared  m 
Thomas  Weelkes,  Madrigals  (i59?)>  but  Weelkes  did  not 
necessarily  write  the  words  as  well  as  the  music.  England's 
Helicon  also  has  xx  as  Marlowe's,  with  the  reply,  usually 
ascribed  to  Raleigh,  from  which  the  Passionate  Pilgrim 
takes  its  last  quatrain.    Bartholomew  Griffin's  Fidessa 
(i  596)  had  included  xi,  and  the  use  of  the  same  Venus  and 
Adonis  theme  in  iv,  vi,  and  ix  suggests  that  these  may  be  his, 
although  they  have  sometimes  been  accepted  as  Shake- 
spearean variations  on  Venus  and  Adonis.  A  longer  version  of 
'Crabbed  age  and  Youth'  (xii)  is  in  Thomas  Deloney's  Gar- 
land of Goodwill {1631).  This  was  registered  in  i629as  'the 
new  garland  of  Goodwill* ',  and  perhaps  this  phrasing  may 
give  some  support  to  the  very  dubious  evidence,  set  out  in 
F.  O.  Mann,  Works  ofDeloney,  562,  for  an  earlier  edition. 
But  if  it  existed,  we  do  not  know  that  'Crabbed  age'  was  in 
it.   There  must  at  least  have  been  a  ^  good  ^deal  of  new 
matter  to  make  a  fresh  registration  desirable  in  1629,  and 
there  can  be  no  assurance  that  this  was  all  by  Deloney, 
who  died  about  1600.  Perhaps  xii  is  the  only  doubtful 
item  in  the  Passionate  Pilgrim  that  one  would  much  care 
to  salve  as  Shakespeare's.  Of  the  rest,  xvi  cannot  be  his, 
and  those  who  think  that  vii,  x,  xiii,  xiv-xv,  and  xix  may  be 
do  not  express  themselves  with  much  confidence.  ^ 

The  two  epistles  noted  as  'added'  on  the  1 6 1 2  title-page 
are  from  Thomas  Heywood's  Troia  Britanica,  197,  215. 
This  was  printed  by  W.  Jaggard  in  1609.  Heywood 
(App.  B,  no.  xxxvi)  tells  us  of  his  annoyance  at  the  use 
of  them,  and  says  that  it  was  shared  by  Shakespeare. 
Possibly,  therefore,  a  protest  led  to  the  alteration  in  the 
1612  title-page,  Malone  notes  in  his  copy  that,  besides 
the  two  epistles,  there  are  six  other  'added'  pieces  on  D  5- 
H  7  from  Troia  Britanica,  1 1 3, 1 52, 239, 254,  328.  Lee, 
P.P.  49,  has  missed  this.  All  the  borrowings  from  Hey- 
wood seem  to  be  Ovidian  translations  or  adaptations. 

1  Arber,  iv.  zax. 


Chap.  XI  549 


IV.   THE  PHOENIX  AND  TURTLE 

[Qi.  1 60 1.]  Loves  Martyr:  Or,  Rosalins  Complaint. 
Allegorically  shadowing  the  truth  of  Loue,  in  the  constant 
Fate  of  the  Phoenix  and  Turtle.  A  Poeme  ...  by  Robert 
Chester.  ,  ,  .  To  these  are  added  some  new  compositions 
of  seuerall  moderne  Writers  whose  names  are  subscribed 
to  their  seuerall  workes,  vpon  the  first  subiect:  viz.  the 
Phoenix  and  Turtle.  .  .  .  London  Imprinted  (by  Richard 
Field)  for  E(dward>  B(lount).  1601.  [Second  title  on  Z] 
Hereafter  Follow  Diuerse  Poeticall  Essaies  on  the  former 
Subiect;  viz:  the  Turtle  and  Phoenix.  Done  by  the  best 
and  chiefest  of  our  moderne  writers,  with  their  names  sub- 
scribed to  their  particular  workes:  neuer  before  extant. 
And  (now  first)  consecrated  by  them  all  generally,  to  the 
loue  and  merite  of  the  true-noble  Knight,  Sir  lohn  Salis- 
burie . . .  [Ornament^  with  Field's  motto]  MDCI. 
[Z  3V  has  verseswithout  title,beginning  'Let  the  bird  of  lewdest  lay', 
and  introducing  a  Threnos,  signed  'William  Shake-speare*.] 

Reprint.  A.B.  Grosart  (1878,  ^.5.5.). 

[Q2.  161 1.]  The  Anuals  of  great  Brittaine  .  .  .  [Allde's 
device  (McKerrow  310)]  London  Printed  for  Mathew 
Lownes.  1611 

Dissertations.  ].  O.  Halliwell-Phillipps,  Some  Account  of  Chester's  Love's 
Martyr  (i  865);  A.  H.  R.  Fairchild,  The  P.  and  T.  (1904,  E.S.  xxxiii.  337); 
C.  Brown,  Sir  John  Sa/usfary  and  Robert  Chester;  Poems  (1914)- 

Love's  Martyr  is  a  rambling  collection  of  poems  by  Robert 
Chester  which,  so  far  as  they  have  any  unifying  theme,  find 
it  in  the  celebration,  under  the  symbols  of  the  phoenix 
(Love)  and  the  turtle  (Constancy),  of  the  wedded  love  of 
his  patron,  Sir  John  Salisbury  or  Salusbury  of  Lleweni, 
Denbighshire,  himself  a  poet  and  Esquire  of  the  Body,  and 


seems  (Brown  xxii)  to  have  been  an  adherent  of  Cecil,  and 
unfriendly  to  Essex.  The  added  poems  by  Shakespeare, 
Jonson,  Chapman,  Marston,  Vatum  Chorus,  and  Ignoto 


s  So  THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS  Chap.  XI 

mostly  pay  some  compliment  to  the  phoenix  theme.  That 
of  Shakespeare  cannot  rest  upon  any  deep  study  of 
Chester's  work,  since  it  laments  the  childless  death  of  the 
phoenix  and  turtle.  A  son  or  other  relative  of  Salisbury 
wrote  verses  on  the  First  Folio  (App.  B,  no.  liv). 

V.    A  LOVER'S  COMPLAINT 
[For  Bibliographical  History,  see  Sonnets] 
Modern  Edition.   G.  Wyndham  (1898). 

Dissertations.  R  Delius,  A.L.C.  (1885,  J.  xx.  41;  AM.  ii.  223); 
G.  Sarrazin,  ttber  Shs  Klage  der  Litbendcn  (1902,  Kleine  SA.  $tudien)\ 
].  W.  Mackail,  4.L.C.  (1912,  Essays  and  Studies  of  English  Assn.  iii.  51); 
J.  M.  Robertson,  A.L.C.  (1917*  Si.  and  Chapman,  7). 

The  Shakespearean  authorship  of  A  Lover's  Complaint  is 
open  to  much  doubt.  Mackail  points  to  many  features  of 
diction,  syntax,  and  phrasing  which,  in  their  cumulative 
effect  tell  against  him,  and  finds  'a  certain  laboriousness, 
a  certain  cramped,  gritty,  discontinuous  quality'  in  the 
writing  as  a  whole.  He  rejects  the  idea  that  the  poem  is 
the  work  of  a  beginner,  and  thinks  that  the  echoes  of 
Shakespeare  may  be  due  to  imitation,  perhaps  by  the 
Rival  Poet  of  the  Sonnets.  Robertson  argues  at  length  for 
the  authorship  of  Chapman,  and  perhaps  this  is  more 
plausible  than  some  of  his  other  ascriptions  to  that  writer. 

VI.   ASCRIBED  VERSES 

The  manuscript  anthologies  and  commonplace  books  of 
the  seventeenth  century  sometimes  contain,  not  only 
extracts  from  Shakespeare,  but  also  miscellaneous  poems 
under  his  name  or  initials.  Little  reliance  can  be  placed 
on  such  ascriptions.  A  few  are  noted  in  Var.  ii.  48 1,  507 ; 
W.  J.  Thorns,  Anecdotes  and  Traditions  (1839,  C.S.),  49; 
H.P.  Marriage  of  Wit  and  Wisdom^  93,  Rarities,  52,  237. 
There  is  no  complete  collection  and  I  will  not  attempt  one. 
A  special  group  is  studied  in  J,  Q.  Adams,  Sh.  as  a  Writer 
of  Epitaphs.1  I  discuss  elsewhere  the  'tombstone'  verses 
(App.  A,  no.  xxv)  and  the  epigrams  on  Combe  (App.  A, 

1  1923,  Manly  Studies,  78. 


Chap.  XI  ASCRIBED  VERSES  55I 

no.  xviii)  and  Jonson  (App.  B,  no.  xxii),  and  will  here  note 
two  others. 

(a)  Epitaph  on  Elias  James. 

An 

Epitaph 

When  god  was  pleas'd  y°  world  vnwilling  yet 
Elias  James  to  nature  payd  his  debt 
And  here  reposeth;  as  he  liv'd  he  dyde 
The  saying,  in  him  strongly  verefi'de 
Such  life  such  death  y**  ye  known  truth  to  tell 
He  liv'd  a  godly  life  and  dy'de  as  well. 

Wm:  Shakespeare. 

This  is  from  Bodl.  Rawlinson  Poet.  MS.  160,  f.  41,  It  is 
dated  in  the  Cat.  'about  1640',  and  I  note  poems  of  1630 
(f.  30V)  and  1633  (£55). 

(#)  Epitaphs  on  the  Stanleys. 

Shakspeare        An  Epitaph  on  Sr  Edward  Standly. 

Ingraven  on  his  Toombe  in  Tong  Church. 
Not  monumental!  stones  preserves  our  Fame; 
Nor  sky-aspiring  Piramides  our  name; 
The  memory  of  him  for  whom  this  standes 
Shall  out  live  marble  and  defacers  hands 
When  all  to  times  consumption  shall  bee  given, 
Standly  for  whom  this  stands  shall  stand  in  Heaven. 

On  Sr  Thomas  Standly 

Idem,  ibidem 

Ask  who  lies  heere  but  doe  not  wheepe; 

Hee  is  not  deade;  Hee  doth  but  sleepe; 

This  stony  Register  is  for  his  bones, 

His  Fame  is  more  perpetuall,  then  these  stones, 
And  his  owne  goodnesse  w*  him  selfe  being  gone, 
Shall  live  when  Earthly  monument  is  ftonne. 

This  is  given  in  facsimile  by  H.P.  Folio,  i  (1853),  162, 
from  a  manuscript  which  is  more  fully  described  in  H.P. 
Reliques,  32,  and  was  later  at  Warwick  Castle.  H.P.  as- 
cribes the  hand  to  the  early  part  of  the  reign  of  Charles  L 


552  THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS  Chap.  XI 

If  he  is  right,  the  manuscript  is  a  much  earlier  authority 
than  Sir  William  Dugdale,  who  copied  the  epitaphs,  with 
slightly  different  spelling  and  punctuation,  in  a  collection 
appended  to  his  Visitation  of  Shropshire  in  1 664.*  Hence  it 
was  communicated  by  Sir  Isaac  Heard,  Garter,  to  Malone 
who  printed  it.2  It  was  again  given  from  the  manuscript 
by  Mrs.  Esdaile  in  The  Times  tor  22  April  1929,  with  a 
discussion  of  the  date  and  authenticity,  which  was  supple- 
mented by  Mr.  C.  G.  O.  Bridgeman  in  a  letter  of  May  22. 
Dugdale  heads  his  copy  'Shakespeare.  These  following 
Verses  were  made  by  William  Shakespeare,  the  late  famous 
Tragedian',  and  notes  the  'Ask'  set  as  'Written  upon  the 
East  end  of  this  Tombe'  and  the  'Not*  set  as  'Written  upon 
the  West  end  thereof.  The  tomb  is  still  at  Tong.  It 
originally  stood  on  the  north  side  of  the  chancel,  but  is 
now  at  the  east  end  of  the  south  aisle.  Descriptions  are 
in  G.  Griffiths,  History  of  Tong  (1894),  and  D.  H.  S. 
Cranage,  Architectural  Account  of  Churches  in  Shropshire,  i 
(1901),  42.  Four  arches  bear  a  canopy,  and  on  this  lie, 
rather  cramped  between  four  pyramids  at  its  corners,  a  man 
in  heavy  plate-armour  and  a  woman,  and  beneath  it  another 
man  wearing,  according  to  Mrs.  Esdaile,  'lighter  armour 
of  a  later  type'.  On  the  south  face  of  the  tomb  is  the 
inscription: 

Thomas  Stanley  Knight  second  soone  of  Edward  Earle  of  Derbie 
Lord  Stanley  and  Strange  desended  from  the  familie  of  the  Stanleys 
married  Margaret  Vernon  one  of  the  daughters  and  cohaires  of  Sir 
George  Vernon  of  Nether  Haddon  in  the  countie  of  Derbie 
Knighte  By  whom  he  had  issue  two  soons  Henri  and  Edw.  Henry 
died  an  infant  and  Edw  survived  to  whom  thos  Lordshipes  de- 
sended and  married  The  La.  Lucie  Percie  second  daughter  to 
Thomas  Earl  of  Northumberland  by  her  he  had  issue  seaven 
daughters  and  one  soone  shee  and  her  4  daughters  18  Arabella  16 
Maie  15  Alis  and  13  Priscilla  are  interred  under  a  monument  in  yc 
church  of  Waltham  in  ye  countie  of  Essex.  Thomas  his  soone  died 
in  his  mfancie  and  is  buried  in  y*  parishe  churche  of  Winwicke  in  ye 
countie  of  Lancary*  other  three  Petronella  Francis  and  Venesie  are 
yet  Livinge.  Bead  mortui  qui  in  Domino  moriuntur. 

«  College  of  Arms  MS.  C.  35,  f.  20.  *  1790,  i.  i.  130  j  Far.  ii,  507. 


Chap.  XI  ASCRIBED  VERSES  553 

The  Stanley  pedigree,  so  far  as  relevant,  is  as  follows: 

Edward,  3rd  Earl  of  Derby 
ob.  1572 


Henry,  4th  Earl 
ob.  1593 

| 
Sir  Thomas  • 
ofWinwick 
ob,  1576 

•  Margaret  Vernon 
ob.  1596 

Sir  Edward  i 
ob.  1609 

Ferdinando,  5th    William,  6th    Henry        Sir  Edward  ii  -y  Lucy  Percy 

Earl  Earl          ob.  inf.  n.  1562 

ob.  1594  ob.  1642.  K.B.  1603 

ob.  1632 


The 
ob. 

mas 
inf. 

Arabella 
o.s.p. 

May 
o.s.p. 

Alice 
o.s.p. 

Prise 

O.S.] 

1    c.  1613 
ilia       Frances  =  Sir  John 
J.                           Fortescue 

1625 

Venetia  =  Sir  Petronilla 
n.  1600       Kenelm          alive 
ob.  i  May    Digby  1632 

1633  o.s.p. 

The  monument  bears  no  record  of  its  own  date,  and  the 
only  direct  indication  is  an  unsupported  statement  in 
Every,  Etchings  of  Tong  Church  (1841),  that  this  was  1612, 
Such  a  date  would  be  consistent  with  Mrs.  Esdaile's 
opinion  that  the  style  'suggests  the  developed  Jacobean 
work  of  1 610-25',  an^  w^k  Mr.  Bridgeman's  observation 
that  the  inscription  would  probably  have  given  the  mar- 
riage (c,  1613)  of  Frances  Stanley,  if  it  had  taken  place. 
On  the  other  hand,  1612  would  be  rather  late  to  put  up  a 
monument  to  persons  who  died  in  1576  and  1596  respec- 
tively, and  the  absence  of  any  description  of  Sir  Edward  ii 
as  a  knight  would  of  itself  suggest  that  the  inscription  fell 
between  1 603  and  Venetia's  birth  in  1600.  The  deaths  of 
his  wife  and  children,  to  which  it  refers,  have  not  been 
dated.  But  then,  again,  on  what  Sir  Edward  was  the 
verse  epitaph  written,  and  whose  is  the  lower  figure, 
which  clearly  occupies  the  chief  place  on  the  monument  ? 


5  $4  THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS  Chap.  XI 

Mrs.  Esdaile,  probably  influenced  by  the  different  types 
of  armour,  makes  the  upper  figures  Sir  Thomas  and 
Margaret,  and  the  lower  their  son.  But  Sir  Edward  ii  died, 
according  to  his  brass  at  Eynsham,  on  18  June  1632  (not 
1 8  January  1 633,  as  Mr.  Bridgeman  has  it),  and  therefore 
his  figure,  if  it  is  his,  and  the  verses  on  him  must  have 
been  added  to  the  tomb  after  that  date,  and  incidentally 
after  Shakespeare's  death.   This  seems  to  me  the  most 
likely  solution,  and  the  fact  that  Tong  was  sold  about  1623 
would  be  no  obstacle  if  the  monument,  with  a  vacant 
place,  already  existed.  The  burial  was  at  Eynsham.  The 
alternative  is  to  suppose  that  the  lower  figure  is  Sir  Edward 
i,  who  according  to  the  D  JV.5.  died  in  1 609.  But  he  had 
nothing  to  do  with  Tong.  He  is,  indeed,  a  very  obscure 
personage.  The  anonymous  History  o/  the  House  of  Stanley 
(1767),  51,  confuses  him  hopelessly  with  Sir  William 
Stanley  of  Hooton.   Shaw,  ii.  70,  gives  his  knighting  on 
2  January  1560,  as  brother  instead  of  son  to  the  then  Earl 
of  Derby.  Dugdale  in  his  Visitation  of  Lancashire  in  1664— 
5  (Chetham  Soc.),  iii.  282,  makes  him  second  instead  of  third 
son  to  the  Earl,  and  describes  him  as  *of  Eynsham'.  This 
he  certainly  was  not,  since  Eynsham,  with  the  other 
Stanley  manors  in  Oxfordshire,  were  settled  (Seacome 
52)  upon  Sir  Thomas  and  his  son,  afterwards  Sir  Edward  ii, 
in  1562.  Mrs.  Esdaile,  I  fear,  rates  Dugdale's  accuracy, 
considerable  antiquary  though  he  was,  altogether  too 
highly,  and  if  the  case  for  Shakespeare's  authorship  of  the 
verses  rested  on  him,  it  would  not  be  worth  much.  Cer- 
tainly it  was  no  part  of  his  heraldic  duty,  as  she  thinks,  to 
record  church  monuments.  The  case  does  not  really  rest 
upon  him,  in  view  of  H.P.'s  manuscript,  and  it  was  pro- 
bably from  some  similar  source,  directly  or  indirectly,  that 
the  ascription  reached  him.  But  such  a  manuscript  is  in 
itself  far  from  being  a  good  authority.  It  is  clear  that  one 
set  of  the  verses  cannot  be  Shakespeare's,  if  it  relates  to 
the  Sir  Edward  who  owned  Tong,  and  on  internal  evidence 
there  is  no  temptation  to  accept  either  of  them  as  his. 
Malone,  however,  thought  them  'of  a  better  leer'  (not,  as 
Mrs.  Esdaile  says,  'better  beer')  than  the  James  epitaph. 


Chap.  XI  ASCRIBED  VERSES  5  5  5 

(<:)  The  Phaethon  Sonnet. 

Some  anonymous  poems  have  also  been  attributed  to 
Shakespeare  on  mere  conjecture.  The  only  one  worth 
consideration  is  a  sonnet  prefixed  to  John  Florio's  Second 
Fruits  (i  591,  S.R.  30  April  1591),  which  was  put  forward 
by  W.  Minto,  Characteristics  of  English  Poets  (i  885),  371. 

Phaethon  to  his  Friend  Florio. 

Sweet  friend,  whose  name  agrees  with  thy  increase, 

How  fit  a  rival  art  thou  of  the  Spring! 

For  when  each  branch  hath  left  his  flourishing, 
And  green-locked  Summer's  shady  pleasures  cease, 
She  makes  the  Winter's  storms  repose  in  peace 

And  spends  her  franchise  on  each  living  thing: 

The  daisies  sprout,  the  little  birds  do  sing; 
Herbs,  gums,  and  plants  do  vaunt  of  their  release. 
So  that  when  all  our  English  wits  lay  dead 

(Except  the  Laurel  that  is  ever  green), 
Thou  with  thy  fruits  our  barrenness  overspread 

And  set  thy  flowery  pleasance  to  be  seen. 
Such  fruits,  such  flow'rets  of  morality, 
Were  ne'er  before  brought  out  of  Italy. 

I  do  not  find  the  conjecture  very  convincing,  although  the 
sonnet  has  merit.  And  we  are  rather  in  the  dark  as  to  the 
possibilities  of  any  association  between  Shakespeare  and 
Florio  as  early  as  April  1591. 

VII.   THE  SONNETS 

[S.R.  1600.]   3  January.  Eleazar  Edgar  Entred  for  his 

copye  vnder  the  handes  of  the  Wardens.  A  booke  called 

Amours  by  J  D.  with  certen  of  sonnetes  by  W  S.  vjd 

(Arber,  iii.  153). 

[The  book  and  its  authorship  are  unknown.  Lee  672  says  that  the 

Amours  were  'doubtless'  sonnets  by  Sir  John  Davies,  and  that  it  is 

'probable'  that  the  Sonnets  were  by  William  Smith,  who  published 

some  as  Chloris  (1596).  But  this  is  very  confident  guessing,  where 

there  is  nothing  but  commonplace  initials  to  go  upon.] 

[S.R.  1609.]  20  Maij    Thomas  Thorpe  Entred  for  his 

copie   vnder    thandes   of  master  Wilson  and  master 


5$6  THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS  Chap.  XI 

Lownes  Warden  a  Booke  called  Shakespeares  sonnettes 
vjd.  (Arber,  iii.  410). 

[Q.  1609.]  [Ornament]  Shake-speares  Sonnets.  Neuer 
before  Imprinted.  At  London  By  G.  Eld  for  T.  T.  and 
are  to  be  solde  by  Iphn  Wright,  dwelling  at  Christ  Church 
gate.  1609.  \Head-title\  Shake-speares,  Sonnets.  [Run- 
ning-tit Je  to  Ki]  Shake-speares  Sonnets.  [Head-title  on 
Kiv]  A  Louers  complaint.  By  William  Shake-speare. 
[Running-title  from  K  2]  A  Lovers  Complaint. 

[Some  copies  of  the  t.p.  end  'and  are  to  be  solde  by  William  Aspley. 
1609'.  On  A  2  is 

TO  .  THE  .  ONLIE  .  BEGETTER  .  OF. 

THESE  .  INSVING  .  SONNETS.      ;,'[,     J 
Mr.  W.  H.  ALL  .  HAPPINESSE.      :  ^  „ 
AND  .  THAT  .  ETERNITIE.  ^  * 

PROMISED.  ^  ^ 

BY- 
OVR  .  EVER-LIVING  .  POETr       '- 

WISHETH. 

THE  .  WELL-WISHING.  ty 
ADVENT  WER.,JN.     »  ; 
""   SETTING.  '  '> 
FORTH.        c 

T.T.     ] 

Facsimiles.  C.  Praetorius  (1886,  Sh.  Q.  xxx,  from  EM.  C.  2  1,  c.  44, 
ed.  T.Tyler);  Clarendon  Press  (1905,  from  Eodl.  Malone^  34,  ed. 
S.  Lee);  Jonathan  Cape  (1925,  from  EM.  G.  11181)5  Noel 
Douglas  (1926). 

S.R.  1639.]  4°Nouembris  1639  .  .  .  John  Benson  Entred 
or  his  Copie  vnder  the  hands  of  doctor  Wykes  and 
Master  Fetherston  warden  An  Addicion  of  some  excel- 
lent Poems  to  Shakespeares  Poems  by  other  gentlemen. 
viz*.  His  mistris  drawne.  and  her  mind  by  Beniamin: 
Johnson.  An  Epistle  to  Beniamin  Johnson  by  Francis 
Beaumont.  His  Mistris  shade,  by  R:  Herrick.  &c.  vjd. 
(Arber,  iv.  487). 

[1640.]  Poems:  Written  by  Wil.  Shake-speare.  Gent. 
[Cotes's  device  (McKerrow  283)]  Printed  at  London  by 


[ 
f 


Chap.  XI  THE  SONNETS  557 

Tho.  Cotes,  and  are  to  be  sold  by  lohn  Benson,  dwelling 
in  S*.  Dunstans  Church-yard.  1 640. 

[Sign.  *  2  has 

To  the  Reader. 

I  Here  presume  (under  favour)  to  present  to  your  view,  some  excel- 
lent and  sweetely  composed  Poems,  of  Master  William  Shakespeare, 
Which  in  themselves  appeare  of  the  same  purity,  the  Authour  him- 
selfe  then  living  avouched;  they  had  not  the  fortune  by  reason  of 
their  Infancie  in  his  death,  to  have  the  due  accommodation  of  pro- 
portionable glory,  with  the  rest  of  his  everliving  Workes,  yet  the 
lines  of  themselves  will  afford  you  a  more  authentick  approbation 
than  my  assurance  any  way  can,  to  invite  your  allowance,  in  your 
perusall  you  shall  finde  them  Seren^  cleere  and  eligantly  plaine,  such 
gentle  straines  as  shall  recreate  and  not  perplexe  your  braine,  no 
intricate  or  cloudy  stuffe  to  puzzell  intellect,  but  perfect  eloquence; 
such  as  will  raise  your  admiration  to  his  praise:  this  assurance  I 
know  will  not  differ  from  your  acknowledgement.  And  certaine 
I  am,  my  opinion  will  be  seconded  by  the  sufficiency  of  these 
ensuing  Lines;  I  have  beene  somewhat  solicitus  to  bring  this  forth 
to  the  perfect  view  of  all  men;  and  in  so  doing,  glad  to  be  serviceable 
for  the  continuance  of  glory  to  the  deserved  Author  in  these  his 
Poems.  I-  B. 

This  is  followed  by  verses  on  Shakespeare  by  Leonard  Digges 
(App.  B  no.  lii)  and  John  Warren.  Besides  the  Sonnets,  the  text 
contains  (a)  the  full  contents  of  the  Passionate  Pilgrim  of  1612, 
partly  interspersed  among  the  Sonnets;  (b)  A  Lover's  Complaint; 
(c)  the  Replies  by  Raleigh  (now  in  full)  and  Ignoto  to  Marlowe's 
lines  (P.P.  xx)  from  England's  Helicon  (1600);  (d)  the  Song  from 
M.M.  iv.  i.  I,  in  the  longer  version  found  in  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher's  Bloody  Brother  (1639);  (*)  The  Phoenix  and  Turtle;  (/) 
Orlando's  verses  from  4.Y.L.  iii.  2.  133;  (g)  Milton's  Elegy  (App. 
B,  no.  Iv);  (h)  Basse's  Elegy  (App.  B,  no.  xlvi);  (i)  an^anonymous 
Elegy*  beginning  'I  dare  not  do  thy  memory  that  wrong'.  Sign.  L  2 
is  headed  'An  Addition  of  some  Excellent  Poems,  to  those  precedent, 
of  Renowned  Shakespeare,  By  other  Gentlemen'.  I  have  not 
.  attempted  to  trace  these  fully,  as  they  are  not  claimed  for  Shake- 
speare. But  they  include  poems  by,  or  elsewhere  ascribed  to,  Ben 
Jonson,  Francis  Beaumont,  Carew,  Herrick,  Strode,  Richard 
Clarke,  and  one  I.  G.] 
Reprint.  A.  R.  Smith  (1885). 


5$8  THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS  Chap.  XI 

Modern  Editions.  E.  Dowden  (1881),  T,  Tyler  (1890,  1899), 
G,  Wyndham  (1898,  with  Poems))  S.  Butler  (1899),  C.  C.  Stopes 
(1904),  H.  C.  Beeching  (1904),  A.  H.  Bullen  (1905),  W.  H. 
Hadow  (1907),  C.  M.  Walsh  (1908),  R.  M.  Alden  (1916, 
Variorum  ed.),  C.  K,  Pooler  (1918,  Arden\  E.  B.  Reed  (1923, 
Tale),  T.  G.  Tucker  (1924). 

Dissertations  (selection).  J.  Boaden,  On  the  S.  of  Si.  (i%32,Gent.Magt 
1837);  C.  A.  Brown,  Si's  Autobiographical  Poems  (1838);  N.  Delius, 
UeberShs  S.  (1865,  J.  i.  18;  AM.  i.  i);  G.  Massey,  St.'s  S.  Never  Before 
Interpreted  (1866),  The  Secret  Drama  of  Si's  S.  (1872,  1888);  .H.  v. 
Friesen,  Ueber  Sis  S.  (1869,  y.  iv.  94);  H.  Brown,  The  S.  of  Si  Solved 
(1870);  K.  Goedeke,  Ueber  die  S.  Sis.  (1877,  Deutsche  Rnndschau,  386); 
W.  Hertzberg,  Eine  griechische  Quelle  zu  Sis  S.  (1878,  J.  xiii.  158); 
T.  A.  Spalding,  Sis.  S.  (1878,  Gent.  Mag^  H.  Conrad  (formerly  Isaac), 
Ztt  den  S.  Sis  (1878-9,  Archiv,  lix.  155,  241;  Ix.  33;  IxL  177,  393; 
Ixii.  r,  129),  PFie  weitgeht  die  Abhangigkeit  Sis  von  Daniel  als  Lyriker? 
(1882,  J.  xvii.  165),  Die  S.-Periode  in  Sis  Leben  (1884,  J.  xix.  176), 
Sis  Selbstbekenntnisse  (1897);  E.  Stengel,  Bilden  die  ersten  126  S.  Sis 
einen  Sonettencyclus?  (i 88 1,  E.S.  iv,  i);  F.  Krauss,  Die schwarze  Schone  der 
Si-S.  (1881,  7.  xvi.  144);  C.  C  Stopes,  Si's  S.  (1890,  J.  xxv.  185), 
The  Date  of  Si's  S.  (1898,  March  19,  26,  Athenaeum),  Mr.  W.  H.  (1900, 
Aug.  4,-^.);  G.  Sarrazin,  Die  Entstehung  von  Sis  L.L.L.  (1895,  J. 
xxxi.  200),  Wortechos  bet  Si.  (1897,  1898,  J.  xxxiii.  120;  xxxiv.  119), 
Die  Jugend-S.  (1897,  W.8JL.  149),  Zu  S.  civ  (1898,  J.  xxxiv.  368), 
Die  Freundschaftssonette  (1906,  A.S.M.jf);  W.  Archer,  Si.'s  S.  (1897, 
Fortnightly9lm.  817);  Lady  Newdigate  Newdegate,  Gossip  from  a  Muni" 
ment-Room (1897, 1898);  T.Tyler,  The  Herbert-Fitton  Theory  ofSi.'sS. 
(1898);  C.  F.  McClumpha,  St.'s  S.  andL.L.L.  (1900,  M.L.N.  xv.  335% 
Si.9s  S.  andMJf.D.  (i<)Oi,M.LJf. xvi.  328),  8t.'sjS. and It.J.  (1904,  J. 
xl.  187);  A.  Acheson,  Si.  and  the  Rival  Poet  (1903),  Mistress  Davenant, 
TheDarkLady  of Si.9sS.  (1913),  8t.'s8.  Story  (1922);  C.  Hughes,  Willobie 
hisAvisa (1904);  E.S.  Bates,  The  Sincerity  ofSiJs  £.(1910,  Af.?.viii.  87); 
A.Pktt,£i  IIIandSi:s  S.  (191 1,  M.L.R.  vi.  51 1);  J,  W.Mackail,  SA.'sS. 
(1911,  Lectures  on  Poetry,  179);  R,  M.  Alden,  The  Q  Arrangement  of 
Si's  S.  (1913,  Kittredge  Anniversary  Papers)9  Tie  1640  Text  ofSi.'s  S. 
(1916,  M.P.  xiv.  17);  H.  D.  Gray,  Tie  Arrangement  and  Date  of  Si's  S. 
(i9i5,AAf.Z.^.xxx.  629);  yL.]Wd8,PetrarkismusundAntipetrarkismu$ 
in  Sis  S.  (1916,  E,S.  xlix.  161);  H.  Ord,  Chaucer  and  the  Rival  Poet  in 
Sh's  S.  (1921)5  W.  Poeland  others,  Si  and  the  Davenants  (1921,  June  2- 
Aug.  4,  T.L.S.)\  O.  F.  Emerson,  Si.'s  Sonnetteering  (1923,  S.P.  xx.  1 1 1); 
H.  T.  S.  Forrest,  Tie  Five  Authors  ofSh.'s  Sonnets  (1923);  J.  A,  Fort,  The 
Two  Dated  S.  of  Si.  (1924),  Thorpe's  Text  of  the  S.  (1926,  R.E.S.  ii.  439), 
Tie  Story  Contained  in  tie  Second  Series  of  Si's  S,  (1927,  R.E.S.  iii.  406), 
Further  Notes  on  Si's  S.  (i  928, 4  Library,  ix.  30  5),  Tie  Date  ofSi.'s  107*  S. 
1929,  4  Library,  ix.  381),  A  Time  Scheme  for  Si's  S.  (1929);  Sir  D.  Bray, 
The  Original  Order  of  Si.'sS.  (1925),  Tie  Art-Form  of  tie  Elizabethan  S. 


Chap.  XI  THE  SONNETS  559 

Sequence  and  SL's  8.  (1927, 7.  Ixiii.  1 59);  R.  Fischer,  Sir  $.(1925);  G.  B. 
Harrison,  WlttMe  his  Avtsa  (1926),  The  Mortal  Moon  (1928,  Nov.  20, 
T.L.S.)i  J.  M.  Robertson,  The  Problems  c/AfcW.S.  (1926)5  W.MarschaS, 
Aus  SAs  poetischen  Bnefwechsel  (1926),  Das  Zentralproblem  der  St.  S. 
(1927,  Anglia,  li.  31);  E.  Beckwith,  The  Chronology  of  Si's  S.  (1026, 
J.E.G.P.  xxv.  227). 

The  1609  text  of  the  Sonnets  is  not  a  very  good  one. 
It  may  rest  upon  a  fairly  authoritative  manuscript,  but 
there  are  sufficient  misprints,  including  misprints  of 
punctuation  not  explicable  upon  any  theory  (cf.  p.  195) 
of  rhetorical  punctuation,  to  make  it  clear* that  the 
volume  cannot  have  been  'overseen',  as  Venus  and  Adonis 
and  Lucrece  may  have  been,  by  Shakespeare.  The  absence 
of  any  author's  epistle  is  a  further  indication  of  this.  The 
1640  text  does  not  rest  upon  any  fresh  reference  to  a 
manuscript,  although  the  sonnets,  of  which  eight  are 
omitted,  have  been  regrouped  in  a  new  order  under 
fancy  headings,  and  the  pronouns  altered  so  as  to  suggest 
that  those  really  written  to  a  man  were  written  to  a  woman. 
In  this  respect  at  least  they  cannot  be,  as  Benson  claimed, 
*of  the  same  purity,  the  Authour  himselfe  then  living 
avouched'.  For  what  it  is  worth,  however,  the  phrase 
seems  to  imply  a  belief  that  the  original  publication  was 
not  contrary  to  Shakespeare's  desire,  and  perhaps  the 
same  inference  might  be  drawn  from  William  Drum- 
mond's  statement  about  1614  (App.  B,  no.  xl)  that  Shake- 
speare had  lately  published  his  works.  Drummond  may 
not  have  been  in  a  position  to  know  much  about  it. 

Shakespeare  was  known  to  Meres  (App.  B,  no.  xiii) 
as  a  writer  of  'sugred  Sonnets  among  his  private  friends' 
in  1 598,  and  versions  of  two  (cxxxviii,  cxliv)  of  those  in  the 
1609  volume  had  already  appeared  in  the  Passionate 
Pilgrim  (1599).  It  does  not  follow  that  all  those  now 
extant  were  already  written.  A  traditional  interpretation, 
from  the  days  of  Malone,  has  taken  the  arrangement  of 
the  1609  volume  at  its  face  value,  and  treated  the  bulk 
of  its  contents  (i-cxxvi)  as  forming  a  single  continuous 
series,  written  to  a  single  recipient  If  so,  this  recipient 
was  a  man,  since  the  pronouns  show  that  some  of  the 


560  THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS  Chap.  XI 

sonnets  were  certainly  written  to  a  man.  He  was  a  'lovely 
boy',  whose  hair  recalled  buds  of  marjoram  and  his  face 
the  lovely  April  of  his  mother's  prime;  and  he  was  of 
higher  social  position  than  the  poet's  own.  The  earliest 
sonnets  (i-xvii)  urge  him  to  marriage  and  progeny.  The 
rest  take  on  a  more  personal  note.  The  boy  is  at  once  a 
patron,  to  be  immortalized  by  the  poet's  verse,  and  an 
object  of  close  affection,  to  be  spoken  of  in  language  which, 
but  for  the  pronouns,  one  would  have  taken  to  be  addressed 
to  a  woman.  In  some  of  the  sonnets  he  is  called  *  You' ;  in 
others  the  more  intimate  Thou*  is  used.  I  do  not  think 
that  there  is  any  significance  in  this.  There  are  many 
fluctuations  of  mood.  Sometimes  the  boy  is  reproached 
for  scandal  and  wantonness.  Sometimes  the  poet  is  con- 
scious of  his  own  unworthiness,  his  'tann'd  antiquity', 
his  'disgrace  with  fortune  and  men's  eyes',  his  'bewailed 
guilt',  a  'brand'  upon  his  name,  due  to  'public  means 
which  public  manners  breeds'.  He  is  lame;  a  literal 
criticism  takes  this  for  autobiography.  He  is  tired  of  life 
and  obsessed  with  thoughts  of  death.  There  are  estrange- 
ments and  neglects  on  both  sides.  Some  of  these  themes  are 
dropped  and  recur  again.  At  an  early  stage  the  friend  steals 
the  poet's  mistress  and  is  forgiven.  Other  poets  compete 
in  praising  the  boy.  One  in  particular  is  a  serious  rival. 
The  remaining  sonnets  (cxxvii-cliv)  are  less  homogeneous. 
They  have  been  called  'a  disordered  appendix'.  But 
several  of  them  record  the  poet's  love  for  a  dark  beauty, 
who  is  faithless  to  him,  and  who  is  not  unreasonably 
supposed  to  be  the  stolen  mistress  of  the  main  series. 
It  is  in  favour  of  the  traditional  theory  that  there  is 
evidently  some  grouping  in  the  sonnets,  and  that,  if  they 
are  read  in  the  light  of  the  theory,  there  is  no  obvious  lack 
of  coherence.  It  is  certainly  not  imperative  to  accept  the 
theory  as  a  whole.  The  unity  of  the  sonnets  is  one  of 
atmosphere.  The  thread  of  incident  is  a  frail  one.  Each 
sonnet  is  generally  self-contained.  A  few  are  linked. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  is  occasionally  a  jar  in  the  con- 
tinuity^which  may  suggest  misplacement.  There  is  room 
for  subjective  interpretations;  and  the  licence  has  been 


Chap.  XI  THE  SONNETS  561 

freely  used.  It  has  been  held  that  the  sonnets  of  the  main 
series  were  not  all  written  to  the  same  person;  that  some 
of  them  were  after  all  to  a  woman,  Elizabeth  or  Anne 
Hathaway  or  another;  that  they  were  written  for  another 
man  to  give  to  a  woman,  or  for  a  woman  to  give  to  a  man ; 
that  their  intention  is  dramatic  and  not  personal;  that  they 
are  a  dialogue  between  'You*  and  'Thou* ;  that  they  are 
allegorical;  that  they  are  mere  literary  exercises  in  the 
Petrarchan  convention.  There  is  much  absurdity  injjaaay* 
of  these  views.  More  folly  has  been  written  about  thej 
sonnets  than  about  any  other  Shakespearean  topic.™  o 
doubt  there  is  a  convention.  The  attitudes  and  larifuage 
of  the  sonnets  can  be  abundantly  paralleled  from  other 
Renaissance  poems,  Italian,  French,  and  English.  But 
the  use  of  a  convention  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  ex- 
pression of  personal  feeling.  The  level  of  poetic  value  is 
tar  from  even.  It  has  been  thought  that  the  work  of  other 
"men  has  been  intermingled  with  Shakespeare's.  Mackail 
rejects  or  doubts,  perhaps  justifiably,  seven  sonnets  (cxxviii, 
cxxxv,  cxxxvi,  cxliii,  cxlv,  cliii,  cliv)  in  the  second  series. 
Robertson  regards  about  fifty  throughout  as  spurious,  and 
offers  as  alternative  writers  Barnes  and  Chapman.  Forrest 
thinks  that  Barnes,  Warner,  Daniel,  and  Donne  all  con- 
tributed. A  claim  has  been  made  for  Raleigh,  who  was 
no  doubt  at  one  time  lame  from  a  wound.  Again,  Thorpe's 
order  has  been  doubted,  and  attempts  made  to  revise^  it. 
Here,  too,  subjectivity  has  had  full  swing.  But  an  objective 
criterion  is  proposed  by  Bray,  who  thinks  that  an  original 
order  can  be  determined  by  rhyme-links  between  sonnet 
and  sonnet.  These  are  sometimes  the  same  words  and 
sometimes  merely  words  that  rhyme  together,  and  they 
may  come  in  any  line  of  a  sonnet.  According  to  the 
theory,  the  'Thou*  sonnets  were  written  first  on  this  prin- 
ciple, and  the  'You'  sonnets  dovetailed  in  later  by  similar, 
links.  It  is  difficult  to  think  of  Shakespeare  as  occupying 
himself  through  a  span  of  years  with  an  exercise  of  such 
profitless  ingenuity.  Moreover,  there  are  many  recurrent 
rhymes  in  the  sonnets,  and  different  arrangements  could 
be  worked  out  on  Bray's  lines.  Much  would  depend  upon 

3I42.I  O  O 


562  THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS  Chap.  XI 

the  arbitrary  selection  of  this  or  that  sonnet  for  a  starting- 
point.  It  is  impossible,  I  think,  to  be  dogmatic  on  the 
evidence  available.  But  on  the  whole,  it  does  not  seem  to 
me  likely,  in  view  of  the  character  of  some  of  the  sonnets  in 
the  second  series,  that  .the  whole  collection  can  have  been 
kept  together  by  any  one  but  Shakespeare  himself.  And 
if  so,  it  is  most  likely  that  the  arrangement  of  1 609  was 
his.  It  does  not,  of  course,  follow  that  in  putting  them 
together  he  made  no  departure  from  the  chronological 
order  of  composition.  One  might  suppose,  for  example, 
that  cxxvi,  which  now  ends  the  first  series,  originally  ended 
the  group  i— xvii.  But  clearly,  if  it  was  so,  the  strict  chrono- 
logical order  is  irrecoverable.  Nor  does  it  much  matter,  so 
far  as  the  very  slight  indications  of  external  biography  are 
concerned.  And  indeed  these  would  remain  unaltered, 
even  if  it  could  be  shown  that  some  of  the  sonnets  were  not 
Shakespeare's,  and  that  some  of  the  first  series  were 
written  to  a  woman.  The  boy  would  still  be  there,  and  the 
stolen  mistress,  and  the  rival  poet.  And  we  should  still 
know  little  more  about  them  than  that  they  existed,  and 
for  a  time  counted  for  much  in  Shakespeare's  personal  life. 
It  is  not  surprising  that  great  pains  have  been  spent  upon 
attempts  to  identify  them.  The  date  of  the  sonnets  is,  of 
course,  material.  Their  wording  does  not  give  us  much 
help.  In  xxvii-xxviii,  and  again  in  xlviii  and  1-li  the  poet 
is  travelling.  It  is  rather  futile  to  relate  these  absences  to 
the  known  provincial  tours  of  the  Chamberlain's  men. 
Shakespeare  may  have  had  many  other  opportunities  of 
leaving  London.  In  Ixvi  he  speaks  of  'art  made  tongue-tied 
by  authority'.  If  the  reference  is  to  theatrical  art,  the 
troubles  of  1596  or  1597  (cf.  p.  64)  are  more  likely 
to  be  in  point  than  those  of  1600,  by  which  the  Chamber- 
lain's men  at  least  did  not  stand  to  lose  much.  In  c  we 
learn  that  there  has  been  some  interval  in  the  sonnetteering ; 
in  civ  that  three  years  have  elapsed  since  the  'fair  friend' 
was  first  met.  In  cxxiv  is  a  very  vague  allusion  to 

thralled  discontent, 
Whereto  the  inviting  time  our  fashion  calls. 


Chap.  XI  THE  SONNETS  563 

There  should  be  something  more  specific  in  cvii. 
Not  mine  own  fears,  nor  the  prophetic  soul 
Of  the  wide  world  dreaming  on  things  to  come. 
Can  yet  the  lease  of  my  true  love  control. 
Supposed  as  forfeit  to  a  confined  doom. 
The  mortal  moon  hath  her  eclipse  endured, 
And  the  sad  augurs  mock  their  own  presage; 
Incertainties  now  crown  themselves  assured 
And  peace  proclaims  olives  of  endless  age. 
Now  with  the  drops  of  this  most  balmy  time 
My  love  looks  fresh,  and  Death  to  me  subscribes, 
Since,  spite  of  him,  I'll  live  in  this  poor  rime, 
While  he  insults  o'er  dull  and  speechless  tribes: 
And  thou  in  this  shah  find  thy  monument, 
When  tyrants*  crests  and  tombs  of  brass  are  spent. 

But  even  this  proves  difficult  to  date.  There  can  be  no 
reference,  as  has  been  thought,  to  anybody's  imprisonment. 
The  'confined  doom'  can  only  be  the  limited  duration 
to  which  a  lease  is  subject.  The  'mortal  moon'  is  doubtless 
Elizabeth,  and  the  sonnet  has  been  placed  in  1603,  when 
James  succeeded  to  the  throne,  without  the  opposition 
which  had  been  anticipated,  in  the  balmy  days  of  spring, 
and  a  prospect  of  peace  with  Spain  opened.  Apart  from 
the  lateness  of  the  date,  an  objection  to  this  is  that,  while 
death  may  be  called  an  eclipse,  it  is  not  so  easy  to  think 
that  to  'endure'  an  eclipse  can  mean  to  die.  G.  B.  Harrison 
suggests  1596  when  an  illness  of  Elizabeth,  in  the  year  of 
her  4grand  climacteric',  had  caused  some  alarm  at  court, 
which  seems  to  have  soon  been  dispelled,  and  when  a  fresh 
alliance  with  Henri  IV  was  ratified  at  Rouen  in  October, 
with  a  royal  entry  in  which  Henri  was  presented  by  an 
angel  with  a  sword  of  peace.  He  may  have  been,  but  the 
whole  object  of  the  alliance  was  to  avoid  peace  and  keep 
Henri  at  war  with  Spain.1  The  augurs,  no  doubt,  had  been 
busy  at  the  end  of  1595,  and  a  Prognostication  printed  by 
Abel  Jeffes  was  suppressed.  It  seems  to  have  foretold  a  sea- 
battle,  rather  than  any  special  danger  to  Elizabeth's  life.2 
Nor  can  we  suppose  that  the  'peace'  of  the  sonnet  was  the 
Peace  of  Vervins,  made  between  France  and  Spain  in  1598, 

1  Cheyney,  ii.  148, 157.         a  Cf.  E.  F.  Bosanquet  in  4  Library,  viii.  460. 

O02 


564  THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS  Chap.  XI 

since  this  when  it  came  was  still  contrary  to  English 
interests.1  A  more  plausible  date  is  1599-1600.  In 
August  1599  there  was  an  alarm  of  Spanish  invasion. 
Elizabeth  was  again  ill,  and  the  gathering  of  troops  led  to 
Vilde  conjectures'  that  her  life  was  in  danger  and  even 
that  she  was  dead.2  Negotiations  for  peace  had  already 
been  opened.  They  soon  became  matter  of  public  know- 
ledge, and  continued  to  28  July  1600,  when  they  broke 
down  at  Boulogne.3  This  sonnet  cvii  comes  late  in  the 
first  series,  and  for  the  dating  as  a  whole  we  are  thrown 
back  upon  internal  evidence.  This  mainly  consists  of  a 
large  accumulation  of  parallels.  Many  of  these,  of  course, 
are  individually  slight;  it  is  the  mass  effect  (cf.  p.  254) 
which  is  relied  upon.  Alden  447  reduces  to  statistics  the 
studies  of  Conrad  and  H.  Davis.  Averaged  out,  these 
find  the  greatest  number  of  parallels  to  the  sonnets  to  be 
in  Venus  and  Adonis  and  Lucrece.  Each  has  about  50.  Of 
the  plays,  it  is  naturally  only  those  with  a  strong  love- 
interest  which  are  relevant.  But  it  seems  significant  that 
Two  Gentlemen,  Love's  Labour 's  Lost,  Romeo  and  Juliet, 
and  Midsummer-Night's  Dream  account  between  them 
for  about  150,  and  Merchant  of  Venice,  Much  Ado, 
As  You  Like  It,  and  Twelfth  Night  for  only  about  50. 
McClumpha's  examination  of  Love's  Labour  *s  Lost, 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  and  Midsummer-Night's  Dream  con- 
firms these  results.  Unfortunately  Davis's  list  remains  in 
manuscript  and  Conrad's  is  not  fully  given.  I  have  an 
impression  that  the  parallels  to  the  second  group  of 
comedies  and  to  Hamlet,  Troilus  and  Cressida,  and  other 
later  plays  increase  in  number  towards  the  end  of  the 
first  sonnet  series.  The  chronological  inferences  appear  to 
be  that  the  sonnets  began  as  a  continuation  of  the  lyrical 
impulse  represented  by  Venus  and  Adonis  and  Lucrece,  in 
the  former  of  which  the  invitation  to  marriage  theme  is 
already,  rather  inappropriately,  found;  that  the  three- 


1  Cheyney,  ii.  447.  3  Cheyney,   ii.   448,    559,    citing 

*  Chamberlain,  Efa.  625    Sydney  N.  G,  Goodman,  Efforts  for  Peace  be- 

Papers,  ii.  114;  Hatfield  MSS.  ix.  277,  tween  England  and  Spain,  1597-1603 

302,  428;  HM.C.  xv,  App.  v,  88,  94.  (1925). 


Chap.  XI  THE  SONNETS  565 

years'  range  of  civ  was  probably  1593-6;  that  the  bulk  of 
the  sonnets  belong  to  this  period;  and  that  others  were 
added  more  sparsely  up  to  1599  or  so.  Some  reflection 
of  the  sentiments  which  occupied  the  poet's  mind  may  be 
traceable  in  the  structure  of  the  plays  of  1595  and  1596. 
It  has  been  generally  assumed  that  the  boy-friend  was 
some  young  noble  to  whom  Shakespeare  was  devoted. 
Robert  Devereux,  Earl  of  Essex,  Henry  Wriothesley, 
Earl  of  Southampton,  William  Lord  Herbert,  from  1601 
Earl  of  Pembroke,  have  had  their  champions.  Essex,  born 
in  1 566  and  married  in  1 590,  is  chronologically  impossible. 
The  careers  of  Southampton  and  Herbert  show  curious 
analogies.  Both  are  known  (pp.  62,  68 ;  vol.  ii,  p.  228)  to 
have  shown  favour  to  Shakespeare.  Both  were  good-looking 
and  had  beautiful  mothers.  Both  were  much  in  the  public 
eye.  Both  were  the  subjects  of  early  negotiations  for 
marriages  which  came  to  nothing.  Both  had  amorous  rela- 
tions with  ladies  of  Elizabeth's  court  and  suffered  disgrace 
and  imprisonment  as  a  result,  although  Southampton 
married  his  Elizabeth  Vernon  in  1598,  whereas  Herbert 
declined  to  marry  his  Mary  Fitton  in  1601.  Neither  of 
these  can,  of  course,  be  the  Dark  Lady,  a  married  woman, 
who  broke  her  bed-vow  (clii)  to  take  first  Shakespeare  and 
then  his  friend.  Southampton,  born  in  1573,  was  per- 
haps young  enough  to  be  called  a  'boy'  by  Shakespeare  in 
1593-6,  and  to  him  Venus  and  Adonis  and  Lucrece  were 
dedicated.  The  case  for  him  as  the  friend  of  the  sonnets 
is  now  very  generally  accepted,  and  has  been  well  put 
recently  by  Fort.  I  do  not  think  it  a  convincing  one.  If  it 
were  sound,  one  would  expect  to  find  some  hints  in  the 
sonnets  of  the  major  interests  of  Southampton's  early  life; 
his  military  ambitions,  his  comradeship  with  Essex,  the 
romance  or  his  marriage.  Therearenone.  It  has,  of  course, 
been  apparent  that  the  volume  of  1 609  is  dedicated  to  *Mr 
W.  H.',  and  that  Southampton's  initials  were  H.  W. 


inspirer , 
riend  but  to  the  person  who  fiirnished  Thorpe  with  copy. 


566  THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS  Chap.  XI 

If  so,  perhaps  the  best  guess  which  has  been  made  at  a 
*Mr  W.  H.'  by  the  believers  in   Southampton   is   Sir 
William  Harvey,   who  married  his  mother  in    1598. 
Lee  68 1  offered  William  Hall.  He  found  a  W.  H.  who 
wrote  a  dedication  to  the  Foure-fold  Meditation  printed 
as  Robert  Southwell's  in  1 606,  assumed  that  both  were  the 
William  Hall,  who  was  a  printer  in  1609,  but  did  not 
print  the  Sonnets,  and  gave  a  blessing  to  a  further  assump- 
tion that  this  was  also  a  William  Hall  who  married  at 
Hackney  in  1608  and  might  therefore  be  congratulated 
on  the  birth  of  a  child  in  1 609.  He  did  not  go  so  far  as  to 
suggest  with  Fort  and  others  that  *Mr.  w.  H.  ALL  .  HAPPI- 
NESSE'  might  be  read  in  a  double  sense  by  the  omission  of 
a  full  stop.  But  all  his  equations  seem  to  me  quite  un- 
warrantable, in  view 'of  the  commonness  of  the  initials 
W.  H.  and  the  name  HalL  And  there  is  some  unconscious 
humour  in  the  notion  of  Thorpe's  dedicating  the  volume 
to  a  printer  whom  he  had  not  employed.  To  me  it  seems 
more  difficult,  every  time  I  read  the  dedication,  to  believe 
that,  even  in  Thorpe's  affected  phrasing,  the  person  to 
whom  he  wished  eternity  was  any  other  than  the  person 
to  whom  the  'ever-living  poet*  promised  eternity.    Nor 
do  I  feel  that  in  such  a  document  there  would  be  anything 
very  out  of  the  way  either  in  the  inversion  of  initials  or  in 
the  suppression  of  an  actual  or  courtesy  title.   If  South- 
ampton was  meant  by  'Mr  W.  H.'  both  these  things  have 
been  done;  if  Herbert,  one  only.   The  case  for  Herbert 
was  elaborately  argued  by  Thomas   Tyler  and  others 
thirty  years  ago,  and  I  think  that  it  was  mishandled. 
Obsessed  by  Mary  Fitton,  they  put  the  bulk  of  the  son- 
nets in  1598-1601,  after  Herbert  had  come  to  live  in 
London,  and  related  the  early  group,  urging  marriage 
upon  the  friend,  to  an  abortive  match  between  him  and 
Lady  Bridget  Vere,  which  was  under  discussion  in  1597. 
If  the  sonnets  are  of  1593-6,  it  might  well  be  thought 
that  Herbert,  born  in  1580,  was  too  young  to  be  their 
subject,  even  though  he  was  more  naturally  to  be  called 
a  'boy*  at  that  time  than  Southampton.  But  oddly  enough, 
although  Tyler  used  the  Sydney  Papers,  he  failed,  so  far  as 


WILLIAM  EARL  OF  PEMBROKE 


Chap.  XI  -       THE  SONNETS  567 

I  can  discover,  to  notice  the  evidence  which  they  contain 
that  an  attempt,  probably  due  to  his  father's  failing  health, 
had  already  been  made  as  early  as  1 595  to  betroth  Herbert 
at  the  tender  age  of  15.  On  October  8  Rowland  Whyte 
writes  to  Sir  Robert  Sydney  (i.  353): 

My  Lord  <Pembroke>  hymself,  with  my  Lord  Harbart,  <is>come 
vp  to  see  the  Queen,  and  (as  I  heare)  to  deale  in  the  Matter  of  a 
Marriage  with  Sir  George  Careys  Daughter. 

The  visit  was  in  fact  put  off,  but  had  taken  place,  probably 
by  October  29  and  certainly  by  November  3  (i.  355,  356, 
357>  36l)>  and  on  December  5  Whyte  reports  (i.  372): 

Sir  George  Carey  takes  it  very  unkindly,  that  my  Lord  of  Pem- 
broke broke  of  the  Match  intended  between  my  Lord  Herbart  and 
his  Daughter,  and  told  the  Queen  it  was  becawse  he  wold  not  assure 
him  i  ooo1-  a  Yeare,  which  comes  to  his  Daughter,  as  next  a  Kinne 
to  Queen  Ann  Sullen.  He  hath  now  concluded  a  Marriage  between 
his  Daughter  and  my  Lord  Barkleys  Sonne  and  Heire. 

I  will  not  lay  stress  upon  the  doubtful  possibilities  of  an 
earlier  connexion  between  Shakespeare  and  Lord  Pem- 
broke through  the  company  of  1592-3  (cf.  p.  46) 
or  through  Fulke  Greville,  who  served  under  the  Earl  in 
his  Presidency  of  Wales  (App.  C,  no.  x),  or  on  Shake- 
speare's alleged  visit  to  Wilton  in  1603  (App.  D).  But  it 
is,  I  think,  relevant  that  Sir  George  Carey  was  son  to  the 
patron  of  the  Chamberlain's  men  in  1595,  and  that  the 
ultimate  marriage  of  Elizabeth  Carey  to  Thomas  Berkeley 
is  perhaps  at  least  as  likely  as  any  other  to  have  been 
honoured  by  the  production  oi  Midsummer-Night's  Dream. 
And  I  am  rather  struck  by  the  fact  that,  although  South- 
ampton was  still  alive,  it  was  not  to  him,  but  to  Herbert 
and  his  brother,  that  Fi  was  dedicated.  On  the  whole, 
therefore,  I  think  that,  if  we  are  to  look  in  the  ranks  of  the 
higher  nobility,  it  is  Herbert,  rather  than  Southampton, 
who  affords  the  most  plausible  identification  for  Shake- 
speare's friend.  I  am  not  clear  that  the  conditions  might 
not  be  satisfied  by  some  young  man  of  good  birth  and 
breeding,  but  of  less  degree  than  an  earl.  But  I  have  no 
candidate  to  propose.  The  Rival  Poet,  from  whom  we 


$68  THE  POEMS  AND  BONNETS  Chap.  XI 

should  desire  light,  only  adds  to  the  obscurity.    The 
'precious  phrase  b^  all  the  Muses  filed'  (Ixxxv)  and  'the 
proud  full  sail  of  his  great  verse*  (Ixxxvi)  ought  to  mean 
Spenser,  or  failing  him,  Daniel  or  perhaps  Drayton. 
Marlowe's  death  in  1593  probably  puts  him  out  of  ques- 
tion. Daniel,  who  was  Herbert's  tutor  at  Wilton,  dedi- 
cated more  than  one  book  to  his  mother  Lady  Pembroke, 
but  nothing  to  Herbert  himself  before  his  Defence  of 
Rhyme  of  1 603.  He  is  perhaps  as  likely  as  any  one  to  have 
praised  him  in  unpublished  verse.   His  Epistles  of  1603 
include  one  to  Southampton.  There  are  no  extant  poems 
by  Spenser  or  Drayton  either  to  Herbert  or  to  Southamp- 
ton.  Indeed,  Southampton  was  not  a  great  mark  for  dedi- 
cations until  he  came  into  favour  under  James.   There  are 
sonnets,  in  which  he  is  only  ranked  with  others,  by 
Barnabe    Barnes    (1593),    Gervase    Markham    (1595), 
Henry  Lok  (1597),  and  John  Florio  (1598).  It  is  difficult 
to  agree  with  Lee  201  that  'all  the  conditions  of  the  prob- 
lem are  satisfied'  by  Barnes.    Nashe  addresses  to  South- 
ampton his  prose  tale  of  The  Unfortunate  Traveller  (i  594). 
The  same  writer's  indecent  Choise  of  Valentines  were  for  a 
'Lord  S',  but  Southampton  had  no  claim  to  be  addressed 
as  the  'fairest  bud  the  red  rose  euer  bare'.1   W.  Minto, 
Characteristics  of  English  Poets  (1885),  221,  suggested  an 
identification  of  the  rival  with  Chapman,  and  his  Shadow 
of  Night  (1594)  has  phrases  about  his  inspiration  which 
might  be  echoed,  although  not  very  closely,  in  the  rival's 
'affable  familiar  ghost'  and  'compeers  by  night'  (Ixxxvi). 
Only  the  courtesy  of  a  rival,  however,  could  represent  the 
uncouth  manner  of  his  'hymns'  as  a  'proud  full  sail'.  Some 
hint  of  Chapman  there  may  also  be  in  Love's  Labour 's 
Lost  (cf.  p.  337),  but  Acheson's  attempts  to  find  traces 
of  a  standing  feud  between  Shakespeare  and  Chapman 
throughout  both  the  sonnets  and   Chapman's   poems 
are  very  far-fetched.    And   Chapman   again   dedicated 
nothing  Elizabethan  to  Herbert,  or  to  Southampton,  or 
to  a  'Mr  W.  H.'.    One  other  clue  proves  equally  elusive. 
A  poem  called  Wilkbie  his  Avisa  was  registered  on 

1  McKerrow,  iii.  403. 


HENRY  EARL  OF  SOUTHAMPTON 


Chap.  XI  THE  SONNETS  569 

3  September  1594  and  printed  in  the  same  year.  In 
fluent  but  undistinguished  verse  it  describes  the  succes- 
sive and  fruitless  assaults  upon  the  virtue  of  Avisa  by  'a 
Nobleman'  before  her  marriage,  and  after  by  'a  Caveleiro', 
by  'D.  B.  a  French  man',  by  'Dydimus  Harco,  Anglo- 
Germanus',  and  finally  by  'Henrico  Willobego,  Italo-His- 
palensis'.  The  last  of  these  has  (cf.  App.  B,  no.  viii)  a 
'familiar  friend  W.  S.  who  not  long  before  had  tryed  the 
curtesy  of  the  like  passion,  and  was  now  newly  recouered 
of  the  like  infection',  and  who  Vewing  afar  off  the  course 
of  this  louing  Comedy,  determined  to  see  whether  it 
would  sort  to  a  happier  end  for  this  new  actor  than  it  did 
for  the  old  player'.  The  'like  passion'  does  not,  I  think, 
mean  a  passion  for  Avisa  herself.  There  is  a  dialogue 
between  W.  S.  and  H.  W.  in  which  W.  S.  says  (cf.  Sonn.  xli ; 
i  Hen.  VI)  v.  3.  78 ;  Tit.  Andr.  ii.  i .  83 ;  Rich.  ///,  i.  2. 229): 

She  is  no  Saynt,  She  is  no  Nonne, 
I  thinke  in  tyme  she  may  be  wonne. 

It  seems  natural  to  see  some  sort  of  allusion  to  Shake- 
speare's love  affair  here;  the  more  as  his  Lucrece  is  cited 
(cf,  App.  B,  no.  ix)  in  a  set  of  commendatory  verses, 
mysteriously  subscribed  'Contraria  Contrarijs :  Vigilantius: 
Dormitanus'.  Another  set  by  Abell  Emet  tells  us  nothing. 
Henry  Willobie  is  said  in  an  epistle,  subscribed  'Hadrian 
Dorrell',  and  dated  at  Oxford  on  an  October  i ,  to  be  himself 
the  author  of  the  poem.  I  will  .not  draw  any  inference 
from  the  fact  that  his  inverted  initials  would  make  W.  H. 
We  know  very  little  about  him.  Dorrell  says  that  he  was 
his  'chamber  fellow*  and  'a  scholler  of  very  good  hope', 
who  had  'departed  voluntarily  to  her  Maiesties  service'  to 
see  other  countries.  Dorrell  had  found  the  poem  in  his 
friend's  study.  He  thinks  Avisa  'a  fained  name',  but  one 
A.  D.  in  the  west  of  England  can  rival  her  virtues.  Pre- 
sumably A.  D.  isDorrell'sown  wife.  There  are  later  editions 
of  the  poem  in  1605  ('The  fourth  time  corrected  and 
augmented'),  1609,  and  1635  ('The  fifth  time  corrected'). 
Obviously  some  have  been  lost,  probably  because,  when 
the  High  Commission  were  condemning  satirical  books  in 


570  THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS  Chap.  XI 

1599,  they  directed  'Willobies  Adviso  to  be  Called  in'.1 
One  of  these  may  have  been  in  1596,  as  the  edition  of 
1 635  has  a  fresh  epistle  by  Dorrell,  again  from  Oxford,  but 
evidently  misdated  as  '30.  of  June.  1 569',  Here  he  seems 
to  imply  that  Avisa  was  only  an  imaginary  personage.  A 
statement  that  the  poem  was  written  'thirtie  and  fiue 
yeeres  since'  cannot,  however,  date  from  1596.  The  1635 
edition  has  an  added  poem  in  which  one  Rogero  judges 
a  contention  on  chastity.  It  is  subscribed  'Thomas 
Willoby  Prater  Henrici  Willoby  nuper  defuncti'.  Finally, 
it  may  be  noted  that  Dorrell's  later  epistle  refers  to  the 
poem  of  one  P.  C.  This  is  Penelope's  Complaint  (1596), 
which  has  an  epistle  by  Peter  Colse  to  Edith,  wife  of  Sir 
Ralph  Horsey,  and  verses  by  S.  D.  to  Colse,  discrediting 
Avisa's  virtue  in  comparison  with  Penelope's,  and  calling 
her  *conjux  cauponis,  filia  pandochei'.  I  see  no  reason  to 
reject  Willobie's  authorship  of  Avisa.  Hughes  pointed 
out  that  Henry  Willobie  of  Wilts,  and  not  Hadrian,  but 
Thomas  Darell  of  Berks.,  matriculated  together,  the 
former  from  St.  John's  and  the  latter  from  B.N.C.  on 
1 9  December  1591.  Willobie  migrated  to  Exeter,  whence 
he  took  his  degree,  presumably  on  his  return  from  abroad, 
in  February  1595.  With  his  brother  Thomas  he  is  in 
the  pedigree  of  the  Willoughbys  of  West  Knoyle,  Wilts.2 
There  are  some  topographical  indications  in  the  poem 
itself  which  Harrison  has  satisfactorily  interpreted  as 
showing  that  Avisa  was  born  at  Cerne  Abbas  in  Dorset, 
'where  Austine  pitcht  his  Monkish  tent',  and  dwelt  after 
marriage  at  an  inn  of  St.  George  in  the  neighbouring  town 
of  Sherborne,  'where  hanges  the  badge  of  England's 
Saint';  Both  places  are  within  reasonable  reach  of  West 
Knoyle.  The  belated  condemnation  of  1599  shows  that 
there  was  some  element  of  scandal  in  the  poem.  Probably 
it  is  beyond  recovery.  The  suitors,  other  than  Willobie, 
as  yet  throw  no  light,  although  Harco  should  stand  for 
Harcourt  I  do  not  think  that  Harrison  is  justified  in 
transferring  the  authorship  of  the  poem  from  Willobie 
to  Matthew  Roydon,  the  friend  of  Chapman,  and 

1  Arber,  iii.  678.  »  G.  W.  Marshall,  Visitation  of  Wilts,  58. 


Chap.  XI  THE  SONNETS  571 

treating  it  as  an  attack  on  the  morals  of  Southampton  in 
the  interests  of  Raleigh.   It  is  true  that  in  1592  Raleigh 
had  acquired  the  estate  of  Sherborne,  and  that  in  March 
1594  Cerne  Abbas  was  the  scene  of  an  inquiry  into 
charges   of  atheism   against   him,    held   by   Viscount 
Howard  of  Bindon,  Sir  Ralph  Horsey,  and  others  at  the 
direction  of  the  High  Commission.  It  is  not  known  that 
anything  came  of  it,  or  that  Southampton  was  in  any  way 
concerned.  No  doubt,  as  a  friend  of  Essex,  he  may  not 
have  been  on  good  terms  with  Raleigh.   Peter  Colse's 
lucubration  may  imply  some  interest  of  the  Horsey  family 
in  Avisa.  One  of  the  three  extant  poems  ascribed  to  Roy- 
don  uses  the  same  stanza-form  as  Auisa.   It  is,  I  think, 
more  pedantic  and  cumbrous  in  style.  Roydon  was  with 
the  King  of  Scotland  in  the  autumn  of  1593,  and  it  is  not 
known  when  he  returned.   Even  more  tenuous  are  the 
speculations  of  Acheson,  by  whom  the  claim  for  Roydon 
as  the  author  of  Avisa  was  originally  made.  Avis  or  Avice 
is  a  known  Christian  name,  of  which  Hughes  found 
several  examples  at  Mere,  close  to  West  Knoyle.  Acheson 
treats  it  as  standing  for  a  surname  Bird,  ^  assumes  that 
Avisa's  Christian  name  was  Anne,  and  identifies  her, 
certainly  in  error,  with  the  A.  D.  of  Dorrell's  epistle.  At 
Bristol,  connected,  like  Cerne  Abbas,  by  tradition  with 
St.  Augustine,  he  finds  a  William  Bird,  who  was  mayor  in 
1576  and  died  in  1590.  He  left  five  'natural'  children. 
A  daughter  Mary  married  Miles  Jackson  and  a  daughter 
Anne  married  John  Dowle.   This  Anne  will  not  do  for 
Acheson.    Bird  also  left  legacies  to  Anne  and  Mary, 
daughter    of  one  William  Sachfeilde,  mercer.     These 
Acheson  conjectures  to  have  really  been  Birds  own 
'natural'  children,  taking  the  term  not  in  its  ^normal 
Elizabethan  sense  of  children  by  blood,  but  in  its  later 
one  of 'bastards',  of  which  the  first  O.EJX  example,  and 
that  a  quibbling  one,  is  of  1586.  In  1616  Miles  Jackson 
left  a  legacy  to  'my  sister  Hatton'.   She  is  put  down  as 
Mary  Sachfeilde.  And  now,  by  an  astonishing  leap,  Anne 
Sachfeilde  is  transferred  to  Oxford,  and  becomes  a  hypo- 
thetical first  wife  of  John  Davenant,  who  is  assumed  to 


572  THE  POEMS, AND  SONNETS  Chap.  XI 

have  lived,  although  he  did  not,  at  the  sign  of  St.  George. 
And  according  to  Acheson,  it  was  with  this  wife  that 
Shakespeare  had  an  amour,  which  tradition  has  trans- 
ferred to  Davenant's  blameless  second  wife  Jane.  The 
link  is  in  Davenant's  will  of  1622,  in  which  he  makes  a 
John  Bird  overseer,  and  invites  *my  sister  Hatton*  to  live 
with  his  daughters.1  I  have  only  set  out  this  romance, 
because  it  gives  a  convenient  opportunity  of  stating  what 
is  known  of  John  Davenant.  The  facts  are  mainly  collected 
from  the  documents  in  A.  Acheson,  Shakespeare's  Sonnet 
Story  (1922),  especially  the  valuable  excursus  by  E.  T. 
Leeds  on  the  Crown  Inn  and  Tavern,  contributions  by 
W.  H.  Hutton  .and  E.  T.  Leeds  to  the  Catalogue  of  the 
Bodleian  Shakespeare  Exhibition  (1916),  and  H.  E.  Salter, 
Oxford  City  Properties  (i  926,  O.H.S.\  Oxford  Council  Acts 
(1928,  O.H.S.}.  G.  Matcham's  pedigree  in  The  Hundred 
of  Frustfield)  85,  contributed  to  R.  C.  Hoare,  Modern 
History  of  South  Wilts  (i  844),  v,  does  not  seem  to  be  quite 
correct.  John  Davenant's  will  shows  an  interest  in  the 
Merchant  Taylors  of  London,  at  whose  school  three  of  his 
sons,  but  not  William,  were  educated.2  It  is  reasonable 
to  identify  him  with  the  son  of  a  John  Davenett  who 
became  free  of  the  Merchant  Taylors  in  1563,  was 
warden  of  the  company  in  1592,3  and  was  probably  of  an 
Essex  family,  from  which  also  came  John  (1576-1641), 
Bishop  of  Salisbury.  His  son  John  was  born  in  1565, 
himself  went  to  the  Merchant  Taylors'  School  in  1575, 
was  apprenticed  in  1 5  8 1 ,  and  became  free  of  the  Merchant 
Taylors  in  1 58  9,4  Thereafter  he  disappears  from  London ; 
there  is  nothing  to  connect  him  with  Bristol.  At  Oxford, 
'Mr  John  Davenauntt  vintener'  took  out  his  freedom  by 
purchase  and  obtained  a  city  licence  to  sell  wine  on  4 
June  1 604.5  He  passed  through  the  various  stages  of  the 
municipal  hierarchy,  became  mayor  in  1621,  and  died 
during  his  mayoralty  on  19  April  1622.*  The  earliest 

1  H.P.  ii.  46,  from  P.C.C.  Saville,  History  of  the  Merchant  Taykrs,  ii.  343. 
IZ3«  4  Robinson,  i.  23. 

a  C.  J.  Robinson,  Register  ofMer-         *  O.C.A.  160. 
chant  Taylors9  School,  i.  85,  97,  98.  «  Ibid.  -?o8. 

3  Acheson  61 15  C.  M.  Clode,  Early 


Chap.  XI  THE  SONNETS  573 

traces  of  him  in  Oxford  are  the  christenings  in  St.  Martin's 
chjirch  of  his  children  Jane  (n  Feb.  1602),  Robert 
(14  March  1603),  Alice  (30  Dec.  1604),  William  (3  March 
1606).  Here  the  name  is  Dennant,  Devenet,  and  Daven- 
annt,  and  in  the  entry  of  1603  John  is  already  a  vintner. 
His  wife,  buried  a  few  days  before  him,  was  a  Jane. 
Matcham  calls  her  Jane  Shepherd  of  Durham.  Verses,  once 
preserved  at  Warwick  Castle,  call  her  'a  vertuous  wife', 
and  bid  the  pair  'Sleepe  ondisturb'ed  as  in  your  marriage- 
bed'.1  Their  second  son,  William,  became  the  well-known 
playwright  and  theatrical  manager  of  Caroline  and  Res- 
toration days.  It  is  not  necessary  to  go  to  Bristol  for  the 
John  Bird  and  'sister  Hatton'  of  Davenant's  will,  A  John 
Bird,  mercer,  was  his  colleague  on  the  city  council,  and 
had  himself  been  mayor  in  1615-16.  He  is  traceable 
from  1 60 1  to  1625,  and  therefore  survived  Davenant.2 
A  Timothy  Hatton,  embroiderer,  was  also  of  the  council. 
He  took  a  lease  of  a  house  at  Eynsham,  which  the  city  had 
recently  purchased,  on  29  February  1616  and  was  buried 
on  5  November  i6i6,3  His  widow  may  well  have  been 
Davenant's  'sister  Hatton'.  The  tradition  of  Shakespeare's 
relations  with  the  Davenants  is  given  in  1681  by  Aubrey 
(App.  C,  no.  xiii),  in  part  at  least  from  Robert  Davenant 
and  Samuel  Butler,  and  in  1692  by  Wood  (App.  C,  no. 

•  •\  j  1     t_  _  .    1 T_T —  /  A  _.»*     /"*     «**    wt»»M^    -rwr\\f\  n-e\+  1+  At 


XXX,  XXXIV,  XXXVy,  WilU  gut  11  uuwwgii  -M.  vy  ">«."  ~~.. 

Rowe  does  not  mention  it.  Wood  is  discreet,  but  the  rest 
all  know  the  rumour  that  William  Davenant  was  the 
natural  son  of  Shakespeare,  which  was  first  put  in  print 
by  Chetwood  (App.  C,  no.  xxxvii)  in  1749.  The  scandal, 
whether  there  was  any  ground  for  it  or  not,  includes, 
from  Hearne  onwards,  a  jest,  which  is  first  found  in  John 
Taylor's  Wit  and  Mirth  (1629).  Here  it  is  anonymous, 
but  according  to  Oldys  Taylor  picked  up  other  jests  in  his 
collection  at  Oxford. 

A  boy,  whose  mother  was  noted  to  be  one  not  overloden  with 


H  P  ii.  48. 


574  THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS  Chap.  XI 

honesty,  went  to  seeke  his  godfather,  and  enquiring  for  him, 
quoth  one  to  him,  Who  is  thy  godfather  ?  The  boy  repli'd,  his  name 
is  goodman  Digland  the  gardiner.  Oh,  said  the  man,  if  he  be  thy 
godfather,  he  is  at  the  next  alehouse,  but  I  fear  thou  takest  God's 
name  in  vain. 

It  is  likely  enough  that  Shakespeare  sojourned  with  the 
Davenants  on  his  way  between  London  and  Stratford,  and 
that  William  was  his  godson.   And  it  is,  one  fears,  not 
unlikely  that  William,  desirous  to  be  thought  Shake- 
speare's poetic  son,  was  tolerant  to  the  ascription  of  a  more 
literal  paternity.  But  the  story,  such  as  it  is,  is  a  seven-  - 
teenth-century  one,  and  can  have  nothing  to  do  with 
WilloUe  his  Avisa  in   1594.    John  Davenant  certainly 
lived  at  some  time  in  the  house  known  in  Wood's  day  as 
the  Crown  Tavern,  the  history  of  which  has  been  traced  by 
E.  T.  Leeds.    It  survives,  refronted,  as  3  Cornmarket  St., 
Oxford,  and  here,  in  an  upper  room,  probably  once  a  bed- 
chamber, was  discovered  in  1927*  the  interesting  mural 
decoration  of  flowers  and  vines  and  pious  utterance, 
reproduced  as  Plate  XVI.  The  house  stood  in  St.  Martin's 
parish,  and  seems  to  have  been  contiguous  at  the  back  to 
the  Cross  (now  Golden  Cross)  Inn,  from  which  a  small 
intervening  tenement  separated  it  on  the  street  front.   It 
was  the  property  of  New  College,  in  whose  books  a  series 
of  leases   of  it  are  recorded.    There  were,   however, 
evidently  sub-leases  from  time  to  time  to  actual  occupiers. 
Vintry  in  Oxford  was  subject  to  licence,  and  the  juris- 
diction was  disputed  between  the  university  and  the  city, 
each  of  which  appears  to  have  issued  three  licences.2  One 
John  Tattleton  had  a  college  lease  of  No.  3  from  1564  to 
his  death  in  1581.    He  may  have  been  a  vintner,  but  no 
licence  is  on  record.  In  1583  John  Underhill  had  a  lease, 
but  Elizabeth  Tattleton  was  still  occupier.    In   1592 
William  Hough  junior  had  a  lease,  and  William  Hough, 
furrier,  was  resident.  A  William  Hough  died  about  1596, 
and  his  son,  also  a  William,  about  1606.    The  elder 
William  had  college  leases  of  the  Cross  Inn  in  1574, 
1 583,  and  1592,  but  the  actual  occupier  here  up  to  1583 

1  Oxford  Times  for  6  July  1928.  *  O.C.P.  347. 


Chap.  XI  '         THE  SONNETS  575 

was  John  Waklin.  Hough's  widow  Joan  remarried  with 
John  Staunton  and  still  occupied  No.  3  in  1601,  She  was 
then  for  the  second  time  a  widow,  but  her  husband  had 
conveyed  the  Cross  Inn  to  her  brother  Pearse  Underbill, 
who  died  as  innholder  there  in  1604,  and  in  1605  Andrew 
Leigh  had  a  college  lease  of  the  inn.  Pearse  Underbill  had 
obtained  university  licences  both  for  an  inn  and  a  wine-shop 
in  1596.  At  an  earlier  date  (1583-92)  he  had  held  a 
college  lease  of  the  small  tenement  between  No.  3  and  the 
Cross.  Joan  Staunton  bought  a  garden  behind  No.  3  in 
1 60 1  and  was  still  alive  in  1622,  when  she  gave  it  to  her 
son  Daniel.  But  she  cannot  then  have  been  still  resident 
at  No.  3,  since  on  i  August  1613  a  college  lease  had 
been  granted  to  Walter  Payne,  and  in  this  the  house  is 
described  as  in  the  occupation  of  'John  Davenett,  vintner, 
late  Elizabeth  Tattleton  widow',  Davenant  was  still  in 
'my  house,  the  taverne'  at  the  time  of  his  death  in  1622, 
and  his  lease  had  then  another  five  or  six  years  to  run. 

He  left  the  house  to  his  son  Robert,  but  with  a  right  to  his 
apprentice  Thomas  Hallom,  in  the  event  of  his  marrying 
one  of  his  daughters,  to  use  the  wine-shop.  There  is  a  little 
puzzle  about  this,  since  provision  is  made  for  the  pay- 
ment of  a  rent  to  *Mr  Huffe',  and  the  New  College  leases 
suggest  that  the  Houghs  had  no  interest  at  this  time  in 
No.  3,  although  Daniel  Hough  obtained  such  a  lease  in 
1627.  Conceivably  a  rent  was  due  to  him  in  1622  for  the 
garden,  which  was  not  the  property  of  New  College  until 
1 638  when  he  sold  it  to  them.  But  one  would  expect  also 
to  find  a  rent  due  for  the  house  to  some  inheritor  of  Walter 
Payne,  who  died  in  I6I9-1  Conceivably,  again,  Daniel 
Hough  acquired  Payne's  interest.  In  any  case  Thomas 
Hallom  did  marry  Jane  Davenant  in  1622,  and  they 
remained  as  occupiers  and  vintners  at  least  to  1636.  Up 
to  this  date  the  house  seems  to  have  had  no  sign  but  a 
bush.  It  is  still  called  'Tattleton Y  in  1627.  By  1648  it 
was  the  Salutation  and  by  1675  the  Crown.  A  Crown 
from  which  a  burial  is  noted  in  1622  was  presumably 
another  house.*  John  Davenant's  tenancy  of  No.  3  from 

'A. Wood,  City  of  Oxford,  w.w  »  C. ]. 


576  THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS  Chap.  XI 

1613  overlaps  with  Shakespeare's  lifetime.  It  is  not  so 
clear  that  it  existed  earlier  and  covered  the  date  of  William 
Davenant's  birth  in  1606.  Walter  Payne  had  a  city  wine 
licence  in  1595,  with  a  proviso  that  he  was  not  to  appoint 
a  substitute  without  consent.  He  also  held  a  city  inn  or 
victualling  licence  in  1596,  and  is  still  described  as  an 
innholder  in  i6i7.x  He  was,  however,  also  a  cordwainer, 
and  long  acted  as  scrutator  of  leather  for  the  city.2  Salter 
suggests  that  he  surrendered  his  wine  licence,  and  that  it  is 
this  which  was  granted  to  Davenant  in  1 604.3  It  may  be  so, 
but  this  would  not  bring  Davenant  to  No.  3  Cornmarket  St. 
Moreover,  holders  of  city  licences  had  to  be  freemen,4  and 
John  was  already  a  vintner  by  1 603.  Probably,  therefore, 
he  then  held  a  university  licence,  and  apparently  he  still 
had  one  in  1611—12,  and  probably  in  1620  when  he 
surrendered  his  city  one.  If  this  was  that  granted  to  Pearse 
Underhill  in  1596,  Davenant  might  have  obtained  with  it 
the  occupation  of  No.  3  at  some  time  after  1601.  I  must 
leave  it  at  that,  but  it  is  necessary  to  add  that  a  wine-shop 
was  not  a  place  of  accommodation  for  travellers,  and  that 
if  Shakespeare  stayed  there,  it  was  presumably  as  a  private 
guest  of  the  Davenants.  On  the  other  hand,  a  Christ 
Church  lease  of  property  adjoining  the  Cross  Inn  in  1619 
is  said  by  Acheson,  655,  on  the  authority  of  Salter,  to  show 
John  Davenant,  vintner,  as  then  occupying  the  inn  under 
Walter  Payne.  This,  of  course,  suggests  that  Shake- 
speare may  have  sojourned  there,  but  not  before  1605. 
There  is  no  reference  to  the  inn  in  Davenant's  will. 

1  Wood,  City  of  Oxford,  iii.  35.  a  O.C.P.  349. 

*  O.C.A.  x,  92,  105,  106,  114,  152.          4  O.C.A.  84. 


PBINTED  IN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS,  OXFORD 
BY  VIVIAN  RIDXiER,  PRINTER  TO   THE  UNIVERSITY 


OXFORD 
UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON  Amen  House,  E.C.  4 

GLASGOW  58  Buchanan  Street 

NEW  YORK    417  Fifth  Avenue,  N.Y.  16 
TORONTO  480  University  Avenue 

MELBOURNE     „  Bowen  Crescent 

WELLINGTON 

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BOMBAY  Apollo  Bunder 

CALCUTTA  Lai  Bazar 

MADRAS  Mount  Road 

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DACCA  a6  Jinnah  Avenue 

LAHORE  Bank  Square 

KUALA  LUMPUR  Jalan  Belanda 

HONG  KONG  The  University 

CAPE  TOWN 

Thibault  House,  Thibault  Square 

IBADAN  Iddo  Gate 

ACCRA  Kwame  Nkrumah  Avenue 

NAIROBI 

Church  House,  Government  Road 

SALISBURY  .     Baker  Avenue 


572  THE  POEMS, AND  SONNETS  Chap. XI 

have  lived,  although  he  did  not,  at  the  sign  of  St.  George. 
And  according  to  Acheson,  it  was  with  this  wife  that 
Shakespeare  had  an  amour,  which  tradition  has  trans- 
ferred to  Davenant's  blameless  second  wife  Jane.  The 
link  is  in  Davenant's  will  of  1622,  in  which  he  makes  a 
John  Bird  overseer,  and  invites  'my  sister  Hatton'  to  live 


Chap.  XI  THE  SONNETS  573 

traces  of  him  in  Oxford  are  the  christenings  in  St.  Martin's 
chjirch  of  his  children  Jane  (n  Feb.  1602),  Robert 
(14  March  1603),  Alice  (30  Dec.  1604),  William  (3  March 
1606).  Here  the  name  is  Dennant,  Devenet,  and  Daven- 
annt,  and  in  the  entry  of  1603  John  is  already  a  vintner. 
His  wife,  buried  a  few  days  before  him,  was  a  Jane. 


566  THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS  Chap.  XI 

If  so,  perhaps  the  best  guess  which  has  been  made  at  a 
'Mr  W.  H.'  by  the  believers  in  Southampton  is  Sir 
William  Harvey,  who  married  his  mother  in  1598. 
Lee  68 1  offered  William  Hall  He  found  a  W.  H.  who 
wrote  a  dedication  to  the  Foure-fold  Meditation  printed 
as  Robert  Southwell's  in  1 606,  assumed  that  both  were  the 
William  Hall,  who  was  a  printer  in  1609,  but  did  not 
print  the  Sonnets,  and  gave  a  blessing  to  a  further  assump- 
tion that  this  was  also  a  William  Hall  who  married  at 
Hackney  in  1608  and  might  therefore  be  congratulated 
on  the  birth  of  a  child  in  1 609.  He  did  not  go  so  far  as  to 
suggest  with  Fort  and  others  that  *Mr.  w.  H.  ALL  .  HAPPI- 
NESSE'  might  be  read  in  a  double  sense  by  the  omission  of 
a  full  stop.  But  all  his  equations  seem  to  me  quite  un- 
warrantable, in  view 'of  the  commonness  of  the  initials 
W.  H.  and  the  name  Hall  And  there  is  some  unconscious 
humour  in  the  notion  of  Thorpe's  dedicating  the  volume 
to  a  printer  whom  he  had  not  employed.  To  me  it  seems 
more  difficult,  every  time  I  read  the  dedication,  to  believe 
that,  even  in  Thorpe's  affected  phrasing,  the  person  to 
whom  he  wished  eternity  was  any  other  than  the  person 
to  whom  the  'ever-living  poet'  promised  eternity.  Nor 
do  I  feel  that  in  such  a  document  there  would  be  anything 
very  out  of  the  way  either  in  the  inversion  of  initials  or  in 
the  suppression  of  an  actual  or  courtesy  title.  If  South- 
ampton was  meant  by  'Mr  W.  H.'  both  these  things  have 
been  done;  if  Herbert,  one  only.  The  case  for  Herbert 
was  elaborately  argued  by  Thomas  Tyler  and  others 
thirty  years  ago,  and  I  think  that  it  was  mishandled. 
Obsessed  by  Mary  Fitton,  they  put  the  bulk  of  the  son- 
nets in  1598-1601,  after  Herbert  had  come  to  live  in 


PLATE  XIV 


550  THE  POEMS  AND  SONNETS  Chap.  XI 

mostly  pay  some  compliment  to  the  phoenix  theme.  That 
of  Shakespeare  cannot  rest  upon  any  deep  study  of 
Chester's  work,  since  it  laments  the  childless  death  of  the 
phoenix  and  turtle.  A  son  or  other  relative  of  Salisbury 
wrote  verses  on  the  First  Folio  (App.  B,  no.  liv). 

V.   A  LOVER'S  COMPLAINT 

[For  Bibliographical  History,  see  Sonnets.] 
Modern  Edition.  G.  Wyndham  (1898). 

Dissertations.  N.  Delius,  A.LC.  (1885,  J.  xx.  41;  AbL  ii.  223); 
G.  Sarrazin,  Vbtr  Shs  Klage  der  Litbenden  (1902,  Kleine  8h.  $todieii)\ 
J.  W.  Mackail,  A.L.C.  (1912,  Essays  and  Studies  si  English  Assn.  iii.  51); 
J.  M.  Robertson,  A.L.C.  (1917, 8k.  and  Chapman,  7). 

The  Shakespearean  authorship  of  A  Lover's  Complaint  is 
open  to  much  doubt.  Mackail  points  to  many  features  of 
diction,  syntax,  and  phrasing  which,  in  their  cumulative 
effect  tell  against  him,  and  finds  'a  certain  laboriousness, 


Chap.  XI  ASCRIBED  VERSES  55I 

no.  xviii)  and  Jonson  (App.  B,  no,  xxii),  and  will  here  note 
two  others, 

(a)  Epitaph  on  Elias  James. 

An 

Epitaph 

When  god  was  pleas'd  f  world  vnwilling  yet 
Elias  James  to  nature  payd  his  debt 
And  here  reposeth;  as  he  liv'd  he  dyde 
The  saying,  in  him  strongly  verefi'de 
Such  life  such  death  f*  ye  known  truth  to  tell 
He  liv'd  a  godly  life  and  dy'de  as  well. 

Wm:  Shakespeare. 

This  is  from  BodL  Rawlinson  Poet.  MS.  160,  f.  41.  It  is 
dated  in  the  Cat.  'about  1640',  and  I  note  poems  of  1630 


(£)  Epitaphs  on  the  Stanleys. 

Shaksoeare       An  Epitaph  on  Sr  Edward  Standly. 


528  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO      Chap.  X 

von  Tyrland.  Unless  these  are  mere  coincidences,  there  may 
have  been  some  unrecorded  channel  of  transmission.  An 
Apolonius  and  Camilla  was  registered  by  John  Perrin  on 
9  October 


IV.  THE  TWO  NOBLE  KINSMEN 

[S.R.  1634.]  8°  Aprilis  Master  John  Waterson  Entred 
for  his  Copy  vnder  the  hands  of  Sir  Henry  Herbert  and 
master  Aspley  warden  a  Tragi  Comedy  called  the  two 
noble  kinsmen  by  John  ffletcher  and  William  Shakespeare. 
vjd.  (Arber,  iv.  316). 
[Q.  1634.]  The  Two  Noble  Kinsmen:  Presented  at  the 


Chap,  X  THE  TWO  NOBLE  KINSMEN  529 

[Fa,  1679.]  Fifty  Comedies  and  Tragedies.  Written  by 
Francis  Beaumont  and  John  Fletcher,  Gentlemen.  All  in 
one  Volume.  Published  by  the  Authors  Original  Copies, 
the  Songs  to  each  Play  being  added.  [Motto]  London, 
Printed  by  J.  Macock,  for  John  Martyn,  Henry  Herring- 
man,  Richard  Marriot,  M.D.CLXXIX. 

Modern  Editions.  W.  W.  Skeat  (1875);  H.  Littledale  (1876-85, 
N.S.S.);  W.  J.  Rolfe  (1891);  C.  H.  Herford  (1897);  C.  F.  Tucker 
Brooke  (1908,  Sh.  Apocrypha). 

Dissertations.  W.  Spalding,  A  Letter  on  Sh.'s  Authorship  of TJOT.(i833; 
1876,  N.S.S.) ;  S.  Hickson,  The  Shares  of  SA.  and  F.  in  TJf.K.  (1847, 
Westminster  Review,  xcii.  59;  1874,  N.S.S.  Trans.  25*,  with  additions 
by  F.  G.  Fleay  and  F.  J.Furnivall);  N.  Delias,  Die  angebliche  SA.-F.  Autor- 
schaft  Jes  Dramas  T.N.K.  (1878,  J.  xiii.  16;  AbL  ii.  i);  R.  Boyle,  St. 


Si8  PLAYS  OUTSIDE  THE  FIRST  FOLIO      Chap.  X 

But  I  do  not  see  any  evidence  of  revision.  The  Countess 
episode  is  linked  to  the  rest  by  references  at  iii.  3.155  and 
iii.  5.  100,  and  R.  M.  Smith  points  out  that  both  writers 
use  Froissart  for  incidents  not  in  Holinshed.  For  the 
Countess  episode  Painter,  who  repeats  additions  made  to 
"RYoissart  bv  Bandello,  is  also  drawn  upon.  Robertson's 


Chap.X  PERICLES  519 

[Differentiated  from  Qi  by  'Eneer  Gower'  for  'Enter  Gower'  on 
sign.  A  2  and  other  variant  readings.] 
Facsimile.  C.  Praetorius  (1886,  Sh.  Q.  xxii,  cd.  P.  Z.  Round). 
[Q3.  161 1.]    The  Late  And  much  admired  Play,  Called 
Pericles,  Prince  of  Tyre.  With  the  true  Relation  of  the 
whole  History,  aduentures,  and  fortunes  of  the  sayd